All the Things You Are
by D.D. Casale
Summary: In the long journey of being a Lost fan, I’m sure everyone has already asked themselves, “whose side is Juliet actually on?” Read and find out, Juliet might surprise you, as always!
1. You’re Lost

**All the Things You A****re**  
by Andressa Casale

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Lost, I wrote this for my fun only.

**Rating: **Rated T for some violence and minor suggestive adult themes, nothing that wouldn't have aired on the show.

**Author's Note:** Please, before you go on, take notice that I'm not a native English speaker, and this fiction has not been proof read. I did my best to keep this as flawless as possible. So if anyone would be willing to help me out, I'm looking for a beta reader!

**Chapter Summary:** And so John Locke said, "all roads lead here!" What is it about the hatch that is so important?

**You're ****Lost**  
[Prologue – Part 01 of 12]

He was having a pleasant dream. He was dreaming that the island wasn't infected by that terrible virus for which he had to shoot himself with vaccine every nine days. In his dream there were no hostiles so he could walk around, go out, instead of being locked 24/7 in this dammed station.

She was there with him, they were skinny-dipping in a beautiful calm beach and he was drinking in the beauty of her. Her golden hair was shinnying with the sun, her blue eyes beaming with happiness. Everything was perfect until a green parrot came flying down near them, cawing something that sounded like an alarm beeping furiously and it woke him up.

He opened his eyes startled by the loud noise of the alarm beeping. All he could see was the bunk bed, he lay there for a moment to make some sense of things before rushing to the computer room. The clock was counting down from 20 seconds, he entered the numbers, 4 8 15 16 23 42, those sodding numbers that had him chained to this place. He was slaved by the belief that if he didn't push the button every 108 minutes the world was going to explode. So he pressed execute, the clock flipped back to 108.

He was annoyed, it wasn't his time to push the button, where was his partner? He looked around the cage he had learned to call home, and found him in the living room sitting on a chair. The man had a haunted expression on his face. His eyes were dark as if he hadn't slept for days, and he shook almost violently while fussing with a shotgun on his hands.

"Radzinsky, what are you doing?" He asked annoyed, "this was supposed to be your shift!"

"Did you push the button?" Radzinsky asked

"Yes…"

"Good, since I won't be around anymore, you'll have to do it on your own."

"What are you talking about?" Inman asked raising his voice, "this is a job for two. Are they going to send your replacement?"

"They…" Radzinsky laughed sarcastically. "There are no they anymore, Inman. There's no more Dharma, no more Namaste and Good luck. Those hypocrites got themselves killed by their own people. They turned against each other and some of them joined up with the hostiles."

"What?"

"That's right, Inman, we're nothing more than pawns in a game! The hostiles infiltrated the Dharma Initiative, and now they live in the Barracks as if they're one of us, they eat our food as if it was theirs!"

"Man," Inman looked at Radzinsky with pity. "This place is getting to your head."

"I'm serious!" He exclaimed offended

"Ok, tell me something, if they killed our people, then how come they let us live?" Inman took a seat on the chair next to Radzinsky.

"Because they need some idiot to keep pushing this stupid button," he shouted, "if we don't, then the whole world goes Kaboom!" Radzinsky was silent as if thinking. His were the eyes of a mad man. "I should have never built this station, it's all my fault!"

"Are you ready to tell me what the incident was?" Inman asked "Because when they recruited me to work for the Dharma Initiative they never told me I'd have to keep pushing a button for no explained reason. So if you want me to keep pushing it, you better tell me what was the incident!"

"I was building the Swan Station to research on the electromagnetism that was powerfully rich around this area. This station would allow manipulation of electromagnetism that would change the world in ways never possible before!" Radzinsky said enthusiastically. "Then one day, back in 1977 we were drilling into the earth to build the station when we hit an area containing a large electromagnetic buildup, once the pocket was breached it started to leak electromagnetism. It was chaos, everything metal started to be dragged into the hole. It was only a matter of time before everything exploded."

"How did you stop it?"

"We tried to clean up our mess by cementing the area, we tried to dam the leak, but the energy kept building up behind the dam and would eventually break it. So I came up with a system."

"The button?"

"Yes the button, we wait 108 minutes for the charge to build up so that we can discharge it by pressing the button."

"Ok… But what if the system fails?!" Radzinsky chuckled at Inman's question.

"That's why I picked you, Inman, because you are smart. And so am I! Everyone knows that it's wrong to trust in just one system."

"What did you do?"

"We in the Dharma Initiative knew that back in the 50's the U.S. Government had been testing hydrogen bombs on the island, we knew of a bomb called Jughead that was in the possession of the hostiles. We made a pact with them, and they helped us build a failsafe using the core of the bomb. So now if the system fails we turn this key," Radzinsky pulled a key out of his pocket and showed it to him, "and the island explodes, but the world still keeps turning around the sun."

"Where is the failsafe?"

"There is a grate on the floor in the computer room." Radzinsky looked deep into Inman's face with a hard to read expression. "Inman, what if I told you we've already had this conversation before?"

"What?"

"Yes, every time I told you this I would tell I had a plan."

"A plan?"

"Yes, a plan. The first time I told you this we were really, really old, and no one had come to replace us I told you that once we were both dead there wasn't going to be someone to push the button."

"Really?" Inman laughed at the crazy story.

"Yes, do you know what the plan was?" Inman just stared at him waiting for an answer. "We were going to turn the key and explode the island and then we would finish the job we had been locked down here to do. We were going to save the word. We turned the key, but it didn't end. I was sent back to the first day you started pushing the button and you didn't even remember that ever happening... Inman, you're lost!" Inman shook his head he was sure the man had finally gone crazy. "We both are, we're lost in a loop."

"A loop?"

"Yes a loop, after I was sent back I was sure that I was meant to change something, maybe stop the hostile purge, but every time I tried to stop something it never worked, I ended up dead and then back where everything started, back to this maddening loop!" Radzinsky ran his hand through his hair pulling it.

"And what is the plan now?"

"I met someone," Radzinsky told him, "his name is Josiah, and he told me he knew how to stop it. He told me I would have to die, I would have to kill myself. Because one day my replacement will come, and he will turn the key, and the bomb will explode and everything will work out fine!"

"Kill yourself! Why don't you give me the gun and we can talk about your plan?" Inman tried to take the gun out of his hands, but Radzinsky got to his feet before he could do it.

"Don't you understand?" He shouted, "I'm the loophole! If I don't kill myself now he'll never come, and it will never happen!"

"Calm down," Inman also got to his feet and tried to slowly approach his partner, "let's talk about this, maybe there's something I could do to help."

"The only thing you can do to help is keep pushing the button until he comes…"

"Who is he, how do I know he's the one?"

"Ask him, 'what did one snowman say to the other snow man?'" Inman shook his head, the last thing Radzinsky had said was the final piece to diagnose him as crazy. "The answer is," he pulled back the hammer of the gun, "smells like carrot!" He said and then put the gun on his mouth.

Radzinsky pulled the trigger, leaving behind a blood stain on the roof of the Swan Station. Inman just stared at his body in shock.


	2. You’re Mine

**You're**** Mine**  
[Chapter 01 – Part 02 of 12]

**Author's Note:** Again, I'm not a native English speaker, and this fiction has not been proof read. I did my best to keep this as flawless as possible. I'M STILL LOOKING FOR A PROOF READER! =]

This is a Juliet centric chapter, but they will not always be. Flashbacks are in italics, and there's a major Jacket scene waiting for you. This does not mean I'm a Jacket fan! Hope you like it, please review, I'm really anxious about what people are going to think.

**Chapter Summary:** Jack told Juliet that she couldn't save Claire, he wouldn't be able to protect her and she would be on her own. She told him she was already on her own.

----------------------

_It was a lazy Sunday afternoon as the rays of sun came through the window beautifully illuminating the room where two sisters were at play. The room had light pink painted walls with girlish decoration all around it, they were sitting on a hard wood floor and the smell of fresh baked chocolate cake penetrated the silence of the house helping to sweet even more the harmonious joy they were having. _

"_I love it when you play with me, Rach!" Said the skinny eleven year old, her hair was blonde and wavy, tied up in a pony tail. She was cradling a baby doll in her arms and was rocking it to sleep._

"_I love it too, Jules!" Her sister replied, she was a few years older. The curves of a woman's body were starting to take form. She had straight chocolate hair that fell right to her face. She smiled at her sister showing off her retainer._

"_Then why don't you play with me anymore?" Juliet asked facing away from her older sister, she didn't want her to see the sad look on her face. _

_Sure, there were times when she hated Rachel so much, usually when she was jealous of the attention she got from their parents. And most of the times they fought over stupid things such as whose turns it was to wash the dishes. But lately Rachel had been so distant that Juliet actually missed her. _

_Rachel didn't play with her anymore, didn't talk to her at school, didn't help her with school homework, didn't listen to music with her, they didn't danced to the rhythm of _Downtown _anymore. Rachel was avoiding her so much that Juliet had to learn how face her fears alone. She couldn't just go running to her sister bedroom at night when she heard scary noises anymore._

_But most of all, Rachel didn't hug her anymore, and that hurt more than anything else. But Juliet refused to let her feelings show, she was so consumed on focusing her gaze on a spot on the wall that the doll she was holding fell to the floor. _

_Rachel recognized the hurt on her sister's action, Juliet had always been her younger sister, she loved her in spite of Juliet being annoying at times. She had hugged Juliet when she cried the time her parents got divorced. She had sworn she would take care of Juliet forever. And that's why Rachel felt guilty for trying so hard to push her away._

_Juliet was holding her breath trying not cry as Rachel picked up the doll on the floor and snuggled it on her arms kissing her plastic forehead, she then put it to rest on the toy cradle. _

"_You know what we should do?" Rachel asked happily trying to take her sister's mind off the subject. "We should throw our dolls a birthday party." Juliet looked at her again, her eyes wide with excitement._

"_Yeah, we can make some popcorn like we did the last time." They giggled together at the memory. "But Rach," Juliet became serious again, this time, however, she didn't face away, "you didn't answer my question." _

"_What?" It was Rachel's time to avoid Juliet. She picked up the doll again, holding it to her shoulder pretending to burp it._

"_Why don't you play with me anymore?" As Rachel took her time to answer Juliet's gaze fell to the floor, her sister's silence was the answer she was dreading. "You don't like me anymore, do you?"_

"_What?!" Rachel asked surprised her heart pounding heavily on her chest. "No, Jules, don't ever say that! That's not why!!"_

"_Then just tell me why!" Juliet looked her sister in the eyes, hers were beginning to become red._

"_Because I'm ashamed!" Rachel confessed and the hurt look on Juliet's face made her understand how it sounded. "But not because of you," she corrected, "because I'm fourteen, girls my age don't like playing with dolls anymore! They sneak out in the middle of the night to go to parties, they like to play with boys!"_

"_Like kissing!" Juliet giggled her cheeks bright red._

"_Yeah, like kissing." Rachel smiled at her sister's innocence._

"_Have you?" Juliet asked and it was Rachel's turn to get her cheeks burning as she nodded in agreement. "How was it?"_

"_It was…" Rachel looked at the door to make sure mother wasn't around, "it was weird, I was twelve and he was thirteen, he asked if I wanted to be his girlfriend. I was excited and said yes, so when we were out of school, he took me somewhere privet and kissed me. I was surprised because I didn't know he was going to do it. It felt like I had a slippery animal moving on my mouth." Juliet wrinkled her nose with disgust, "you want my advice, Jules? Don't do it because you think you have to, wait until you know you want to!"_

_They were silent for a moment as Juliet thought about what her sister told her. "Rach, nobody has to know you still like to play with dolls." Juliet said trying to cheer up her sister and Rachel laughed at the obvious reasoning._

"_Yeah, I guess you are right. And I really do love playing with dolls. You know what my worst fear is, Jules?"_

"_What?" She asked getting to her feet._

"_I love babies so much I'm afraid of not being able to have one." Rachel said kissing the doll's forehead again as Juliet watched her sympathetically._

----------------------

"Why are you doing this?" Sun asked suspiciously, still not able to believe in the woman before her. For all she knew, the Others could be planning on stealing her baby.

"What?" Juliet asked

"Helping me."

Juliet paused, unsure if she should bother to tell her the truth. "Once upon a time," Juliet begun, "I told women that they were pregnant and their faces, it was the best news they ever got in their entire life." She told her, "then I came here. I've lost…." She stopped to count, "nine patients in the last three years. I'm helping you because I want to tell you that you and your husband got pregnant before you came here. I'm helping you because I wanna give good news again."

Her sugar coated story of what her life had been like for the past three years seemed to have earned her the Korean woman's trust. Because Sun was now telling her that she had cheated on her husband before coming to the island. Juliet didn't judge her. "We all make mistakes!" Juliet told her sympathetically.

Juliet led Sun to a secret room, which she explained was the room they brought women to die, and there she set up the ultrasound.

"The baby isn't Jin's." Sun told her, "we tried to have a baby back in Korea and couldn't, and the doctor, he told me Jin was infertile."

"And then you came here." Juliet added to Sun's confusion. "Did you know that the average male sperm count is between sixty and eighty million?" Sun was confused by why Juliet was telling her such trivia, but as she went on, everything made sense. "But on the Island, it's five times that. We call that good odds. You ready?"

"Yes," she answered nervously.

"Ok, now lift your shirt up a little." Juliet told her as she poured liquid on Sun's belly. "It's cold." She warned.

"Will I see the baby?" Sun asked curiously.

"Maybe, it's your first trimester so it's a little iffy. If you don't see a heartbeat, don't worry about it, it's just early."

"How does it work?"

"Well I take a measurement of the fetus and that will tell us when your baby was conceived, and then we'll know who." Juliet noticed that there was something wrong when Sun sighed. "You ok?"

"I lose either way." Juliet's heart went out for the woman. "If I'm going to live, that means the baby's not Jin's."

"Do you still want to do this?"

"Yes." Sun answered bravely.

"Ok, moment of truth." Juliet said scanning Sun's stomach. "There it is. There's your baby. Can you see?"

They both laughed at the momentary joy that spread in the room by the miraculous and rapid heartbeat sound.

"I can see it. Is it a boy or a girl?"

"Oh," Juliet exclaimed half laughing half crying, "it's a little early," she said tenderly, "but um, do you see that little flutter. That's the heart beating. It's very strong, it's very healthy." Juliet breathed back tears, "ok, you crashed here ninety days ago. The baby was conceived about eight weeks ago, so around fifty three days. You got pregnant on the Island."

Juliet watched the tears forming in the depth of Sun's delicate Asian eyes, it was hard for her not to be moved by the other woman's sorrow. When Sun finally broke down, Juliet couldn't pretend that it wasn't affecting her as well.

"I'm sorry, I am so sorry Sun. I will do everything that I can..."

"It's Jin's!" Sun told her smiling through the tears.

Juliet helped her up and accompanied Sun out of the staff station. The sun had already risen and the jungle was beautifully lighted.

"So how long do I have?" Sun asked the question that was tearing her inside.

"Most of the women made it into the middle of their second trimester, nobody made it to their third."

"That gives me, two months. I am very happy the baby's Jin's. You gave me good news, Juliet." Juliet smiled sympathetically at her.

"It was my pleasure, Sun. I'm gonna go back inside and make sure that I didn't miss anything, I don't wanna take the chance that we didn't cover our tracks. Do you wanna wait out here?"

"All right." Sun agreed, Juliet walked towards the station entrance. "Juliet. Thank you!" Sun added.

Juliet nodded haply still fighting back tears. She headed inside to the secret room, opened a locker and pulled out a tape recorder. She pressed the record button. "Ben, its 06:00 a.m. on Saturday morning. Kwon is pregnant, the fetus is healthy and was conceived on-Island with her husband, he was sterile before they got here. I'm still working on getting samples from the other women, I should have Austen's soon. I'll report back when I know more." She turned off the recorder, breathed hard in the verge of tears. "I hate you!" She added and then placed the recorder back in the locker, shut the door and went out to find Sun.

The two women walked back to the beach camp in silence, each dealing with their own problems. "You know Sun? I once slept with a married man. I felt really guilty in the beginning and when his wife found out, she warned me to back off, but I didn't." Juliet's voice started to tremble at the memory of Goodwin, "and he got killed because of me!"

"Why are you telling me this, Juliet?" Sun interrupted her a little harsh, she barely knew this woman and still didn't trust her completely.

"You confided in me, I wanted to give you something back." Juliet answered with warmth in her voice.

"You don't have to do this, I only told you that as your patient."

"Well," Juliet accepted the cold treatment, "I'm telling you this as a friend." She watched Sun furious look. "A potential friend!" She added and Sun nodded in agreement.

----------------------

_Toilet noises were never pleasant, __seventeen year old Juliet thought. But the sound of her sister throwing up was unbearable. Specially because the reason of Rachel's sickness was so painful, that it was hard for Juliet to concentrate on her homework._

_She wasn't supposed to witness this. Juliet lived with her mother, but she was out of town on business, and Juliet was set to stay a few days her sister and husband's house. If she had known about this, she would rather have stayed at home alone. She knew her sister was getting chemotherapy treatment, but she never imagined she was suffering this much._

"_Oh," she heard he sister moaning after she puked for the last time, "I feel so bad!"_

_Juliet tried hard to concentrate, but as she was lying there on the living room floor, near the coffee table, her notebook blank, she could watch what was happening on the bathroom. Her sister had her head pressed against the toilet seat, and her husband was holding her forehead caressing her back, massaging her shoulders._

"_You made a pretty bad deal," Rachel told him, "marrying a sick woman like me." She said crying._

"_Don't say things like that, I love you!" He whispered loud enough that Juliet heard on the living room._

"_I'm not even fun, to be around, I just give you trouble." He shushed her, kissing her on the cheeks. "Mark," she lifted up her head, and he helped her sit on his lap. "My doctor told me that with all the chemo I've been getting it might mess up my uterus. We might not even have a chance to have kids."_

"_So, what honey? There's always adoption."_

"_I don't want to adopt, I want my own baby!" She cried._

"_Come on," he got to his feet and then picked her up. "You are tired let me take you to bed." _

_Mark tucked his wife on their bed, and she slept the moment her eyes slid shut. He went to the living room and was startled to find his sister-in-law in there._

"_Hey, Jules I forgot you were staying over." He said sitting on his favorite chair._

"_It's ok," she bite on the pen on her hand._

"_I'm sorry you had to witness that." He said feeling distressed himself for what just happened. "So, hey, Rachel tells me you are applying for college, that's great, what do you want to study?" He asked trying to start a small talk._

"_Medicine," she answered, "I want to specialize on human fertility!" _

----------------------

Juliet watched the Korean couple talking without understanding what was being said. They were laughing and happy together. She had watched them since the plane crashed. She had watched Sun coming out of her shell and turning into self dependent and confident woman. She had watched Jin dealing with his constant loss of power on his wife and turning into a loving, respectful and caring husband.

She had read their files, she knew who both of them were, she had known that Sun had cheated on him even before the woman told her. She knew them too well. And she thought those two were the ones that the island had changed the best.

Juliet really thought she could do this, that she could infiltrate them, betray them. Ben had promised that if she helped him this one last time he would let her go home. Let her go back to her sister. She would get to meet her nephew for the first time. She just needed to fool these people into thinking she was now part of their group, when in reality, she wasn't on anyone's side. She was playing by herself!

She thought it was going to be easy since she knew these people too well, she knew all the bad stuff each one of them did on their past. She thought they were bad people, she wouldn't feel bad about tricking them. Until, that is, when they actually opened their arms for her and welcomed her in. She knew the minute she started to feel sorry for Sun that she wasn't going to be able to go through with the plan.

With that thought in mind she got to her feet, and made it to makeshift kitchen.

"Hey, Juliet!" Jack said putting away some Dharma product, he finally noticed her, "are you crying?" He asked confused.

"I need to talk to you!" She said and walked into the jungle, he followed her dumbfounded.

---------------------

"_Have you told Mark __that you are pregnant?" Juliet asked coming from her kitchen, she had a bowl of ice cream in each hand._

_Her sister Rachel was lying on the floor facing the ceiling with a dreamy look in her eyes. She thought this day would never come._

"_No, he's flying home in this weekend. I want to tell him in person." She sat up, her back supported by the couch. _

"_I bet his is going to be so happy." Juliet sat beside her, giving her one bowl of ice cream and taking a big spoon of hers into her mouth._

"_He is," she said, "he was mad at first, at us both for going through with this, but I'm sure he'll like the good news!"_

"_I'm so happy I could give this to you!"_

"_I know I said I'd keep loving you even if it didn't work, but I love you even more now!"_

_Juliet chuckled, "I know!"_

"_So, are you going to take the job in Portland?" Juliet didn't answer, "you have to go, you have to help other women get pregnant!"_

"_I don't know, it sounds great, but I don't think Edmund would ever let me." Juliet said, she sounded calm, but her sister could read through her calmness. "Back when we were married, he used to be so horrible to me. He still is! He said I'd never succeed because I am a piece of shit."_

_Rachel hugged her sister tight, Juliet surrendered to the tears. "He never once hit me," she continued, "but his words, it hurt me more than anything else! He didn't let me use clothes that flattered my body, and when I talked to other men he'd call me a whore." The tears were now pouring down her face. "But he would flirt with other women in front of me. He said I wasn't good enough for him!"_

"_Shush! It was a long time ago." Rachel said her voice hoarse._

"_He'll never let me go, he'll make sure of that!"_

"_It's ok, everything is going to be ok!" Rachel whispered on her ear, rocking her and caressing her back._

----------------------

"I never thought I'd never see this day!" Jack said somewhat relieved walking through the jungle with Juliet right behind him.

Juliet had come to him with tears in her eyes, he never thought he would ever see her breaking down like this. He didn't want to sound surprised, but he was. He wanted to help her, and more than that he wanted to know. He wanted to know her, what made her cry, he wanted to meet the woman beneath the brave façade.

"I guess here is good enough," Juliet said stopping, she sat on a fallen branch and Jack sat beside her.

He watched her with more curiosity than compassion, she wasn't talking, she just stood there, holding her breath trying to recover her composure. He wanted to know why she tried so hard not to look defenseless, he really wanted her to understand that that's not how it worked on this side, that here if they didn't live together they would die alone. He was about to ask what was wrong when Juliet finally broke the silence.

"I was a fertility scientist and was working for my ex-husband at Miami Central University when I successfully impregnated a male field mouse." Juliet told Jack with unreasonable calm. "I got a call from Mittelos Bioscience, they were offering me a dream job, a whole community that couldn't get pregnant and I would have complete liberty and financial support to find out why. The job was great and at that time of my life…" Juliet stopped to think about how much she should reveal. "I just wanted to help these women get pregnant, and I wanted to prove to my ex-husband I didn't need his support to do great things, so I took it."

"That's how you ended up here?" He asked intrigued and she confirmed with a nod of her head.

"When I got here things seemed to be working fine, I was only supposed to stay for six months because my sister was pregnant. But somehow it's been three years, and all the while I've seen people I care about die, I've seen the people I thought I knew turn into monsters, I've been manipulated and hurt, and I have done horrible things too. And during these three horrible years I have not once talked to my sister because they didn't let me."

Jack took a long breath thinking about what Juliet had just told him. "I'm sorry," he said shakily and she shook her head.

"I don't want people to feel sorry for me. I'm just saying this, because I'm tired of being alone!" She confessed, "Jack, I wasn't left behind by them, I'm here as a spy." Jack studied her carefully, not yet sure of what to make of her statement. "Ben left me to find out how many of your women are pregnant, he promised he would let me go if I did." She paused shutting her eyes, he saw the tear leaking out of her tight closed eye. "And I was going to do it, because the thing that I want more in this whole wide world is just to hear my nephew calling me aunt Jules!"

She covered her face with her hands trying to shield herself from his judgmental glare. She cried and it felt so good, it felt so good to let all the pent up pain wash away with her tears. Right now, she didn't care what he thought of her. She was sure he would want her to leave and she would be alone once again. But he did no such thing, instead she felt his carrying hand on her back.

"Juliet, it's ok, I understand you." He said and she faced him, her face wet from crying, her eyes were wide and red, her mouth was quivering.

"I don't deserve this, how do you know I'm not still lying?" She asked

"I like you, and that is enough for me to believe you, because I only like good people!" She stared at him stunned for a moment then she threw herself into his arms, hugging him.

----------------------

_Stephanie was trying her hardest t__o breathe, as Juliet examined her. Her whole body ached, and the contractions were coming faster together. She couldn't rest through them and she was weak, too weak to even try to push._

"_Juliet," Stephanie called almost whispering._

"_Just relax Steph, I'll fix this."_

"_No you won't, I know I'm dying." Juliet looked at her, "I know I am!"_

"_I will fix this!" Juliet repeated stronger and determined._

"_I don't want you to," she said panting, "I just want it to be quick." Juliet noticed that another contraction begun. "All I wanted was a baby…" She whispered before the monitors begun to beep furiously._

"_What's happening?" Ethan asked entering the room._

"_She woke from the coma a few hours ago, and now has preterm labor, but her body is failing her." Juliet answered completely calm._

"_Ok, then let's prepare he for a C-Section." Ethan ordered coldly._

_Half way through the surgery, the woman finally died. _

----------------------

Jack kept holding, he could tell she wasn't crying anymore by the way she calmly breathed in and out, she had probably cried herself to sleep on his arms, he thought. She felt good there, he liked running his hand trough her wavy blonde hair, her breathe on his neck was sweet pleasure. He didn't know for how long they stood there, he didn't care. It had been a long time since he held a woman like that. He didn't want to stop.

But she pulled back from him. He looked at her disappointed at the lack of contact, but happy her face didn't carry any signs of tears. She smiled, brightly and beautifully, his heart danced inside his chest as he reciprocated the smile. His hands were still on her back, he run them up cupping the back of her head. She looked at him, expecting. He closed his eyes and captured her full red lips on his.

She tasted sweet like cookies with a hint of salty ocean water. She was calm and tender, and she always waited for his first move. He ended the kiss opening his eyes, he saw that her eyes were closed and she was still smiling. She opened her eyes searching for his. They both tried to read each other. He took her on his arms again.

"I know that Ben already promised to let you go home," he said running his hand up and down her back. "But I promise you Juliet, I'll do anything in my power to get you off this island!"

She nodded her head in peace closing her eyes again.

----------------------

_Juliet pace__d nervously outside the medical station. It wasn't supposed to be like this, she shouldn't have trusted Jack, he didn't trust her, and she couldn't blame him for that. But now she was completely screwed, Jack opened his mouth and told these people that she had asked him to kill Ben at surgery. Once this was all over Jack's friends would be free and she'd be the one to pay the price._

"_Juliet," she heard Tom call her name. She tried hard to look him in the eye. "Ben's awake."_

"_How?!" She asked her voice cracking, she was a pile of nerves. Ben was heavily sedated, he couldn't have woken up already._

"_Shephard says he's a spinal surgeon, not an anesthesiologist. Ben's asking for you." Tom informed and she nodded her head following him inside in silence._

_They walked through the hall leading to the operating room, she could hear Jack and Ben talking. "I stopped the surgery." Jack told him._

"_I know. I've been able to hear you for a few minutes now." Juliet felt a shiver of fear running down her spine, what had he heard? "It's very clever of you. I should have seen it coming."_

"_Are you in pain? I can..." Jack asked kindly._

"_No, but thanks all the same." Ben said as Juliet walked into the room, she stared all around her not sure what she was still doing there. "I'd like to speak to Juliet alone, please, Jack." Ben asked._

"_No!" Jack said sharply shaking his head. "No, I'm sorry."_

"_Please, I'm asking you one gentleman to another." Ben begged so affected by the drugs that his tongue didn't help him enunciate the words freely. "It won't hurt you to give me three minutes, will it? Knowing I have only 27 left!" Ben knew Jack all too well that he'd feel guilty at the fact he was holding him hostage._

"_If you touch him," Jack told Juliet, "if you try..."_

"_I won't," Juliet said with unexplainable calm. Jack and Tom left them alone._

_Juliet pulled a chair and sat next to Ben, who was still lying on the operation table._

"_You've certainly became one of us now, Juliet!" He told her bitterly. "I never imagined you would come to become so manipulative."_

"_You think I wouldn't fight you back, Ben?" She asked, "I'm not yours!" He laughed slowly at her comment._

"_You think I care for you, Juliet? You think that I love you, that I have feelings for you?" Juliet didn't know how to answer. "I don't care for anybody. I don't have feelings for people. I don't love period." _

"_You are lying, Ben. You were jealous of me. You killed Goodwin because we were together." Juliet couldn't find any more strength, the tears begun to fall from her eyes. She hated this man so much she didn't know why she couldn't simply kill him right now. "You killed the man I loved!" She accused between gasps of air._

"_I did not kill Goodwin, Cortez did!"_

"_Don't you denied it, you sent__ him out to die! You knew it would happen, then you showed me his dead body and you yelled at my face that I was yours." Her voice was failing her._

"_You're mine, Juliet!" Ben repeated with a hiss, Juliet sobbed weakly. __"I think I thought too much of you, Juliet. You don't know the first things about manipulation. I let you think I sent Goodwin to die so you would think I did it because I was jealous. I invited you to dinner because I wanted you to feel uncomfortable."_

"_You're lying."_

"_No I'm not Juliet, don't tell me I'm a liar, I'm way smarter than a liar!" He told her with anger. "I never lied to you. I wanted you to think that I was in love with you, that I was possessive of you because that's how you've been treated for 4 years of your life when you were stuck on an abusive marriage!" Juliet was too stunned to talk. "Which, by the way, you never actually thanked me for killing your ex-husband for you." He added. _

"_If I really loved you, do you think I'd have let Jack try to kill you in the aquarium? That's what I do Juliet. I find out people's weakness and I exploit it! " Juliet let go of a sob, feeling abused and stupid, feeling humiliated. "But I never lied, never, you really are mine! You're mine!" _

"_Why are you telling me all these?"_

"_Because I need you to go and help Austen and Ford get to main island. Danny is too emotionally attached he's became a liability, he will kill one of them and this will only make things worse. I want you to kill him, we have no use for him anymore, and if you do it Austen and Ford will think you were helping them. Also… if you see Alex I want you to bring her back!" _

"_Why would I do this for you?" She came close to his ear. "I want you to die, I want you to rot in hell!" She whispered. _

"_I know you do!" He said calmly as if her words didn't affect him at all. "But if you help me I'll let you go home."_

"_You are never letting me go home. I don't believe you!"_

"_Juliet, one week after you came to the island, we informed your family that you had passed away on your travel to Portland. We gave them a lot of money claiming to be a settlement. Rachel was so sad, she went into depression, and her cancer came back. When this happened I promised I'd cure your sister cancer and I did it. I kept my end of the bargain." He stopped for her to make sense of what he told her. "If you help me, I'll let you go home! But never forget that even though I will let you go, you're mine!"_

_Juliet cried aloud, not troubling to cover her feelings, she didn't care. She hiccupped between sobs, then took a long breathe, whipped her eyes, and left the room. She looked up at Tom and Jack in the observation window._

"_I would like you to go back in there, put Ben under, and finish the surgery." She told Jack firmly, as if she was his mother and Jack was in trouble._

"_And why would I want to do that?" Jack defied her new found power._

"_Because I'm going to go help your friends escape."_

_Juliet ran to the surveillance room, she saw Alex approaching the main building of the hydra station, next to her were Sawyer and Kate. It didn't take Juliet long to figure out what they were doing. Alex probably asked their help to rescue her boyfriend Karl that was being brainwashed. "Oh, hell!" Juliet said before rushing to the building._

"_Idiot! Where are they?" Juliet heard Danny yelling as she arrived there._

"_I don't know. Alex is with them." Aldo told him._

"_Danny!" Juliet called him coming from the jungle. "We're letting them go." _

"_Letting them go?" He asked half confused half angry._

"_Ben gave the order." She explained. _

"_Ben's in surgery. I was just there."_

"_He woke up."_

"_Oh, he woke up, huh?" He said with an ironic tone in his voice._

"_Shephard won't finish the surgery unless he knows his friends are off the island. Do you want Ben to die?"_

"_I know Ben would rather die than let them go!" He said, turning and leaving to where he was sure that Alex would take those two. Juliet followed behind him, he was too lost in his rage that he didn't notice her._

_Arriving at the beach, they could hear Sawyer's voice. Danny pulled back the hammer on his gun, Juliet followed suit, Danny aimed at Sawyer._

"_Danny," Karl said deliriously as Sawyer placed him on the boat. _

"_No, Sawyer." He corrected him. _

"_Danny," Karl insisted looking past Sawyer, everyone turned to look at Danny, his gun trained at Sawyer._

"_No!" Kate said running over to Sawyer._

"_Danny!" Juliet called out his name._

_Danny turned towards Juliet and she shot him down. She fired three times. His body fell hard on the floor. Juliet didn't feel any kind of remorse. _


	3. You’re Beautiful

**You'****re Beautiful**  
[Chapter 02 – Part 03 of 12]

**Author's Note:** As always flashbacks are in italics, also, I'm not a native English speaker, and this fiction has not been proof read.

This is a Kate centric chapter, I didn't intend for it to get so dark, but I guess that's Kate for you. I found out the sexual tension fit well for her and Sawyer. And yes, this is a sex related chapter, no explicit scenes of course. I'm not that kind of writer. No offence, I just think some things are better left to the imagination. So obviously this chapter features Skate with undertones of Jate.

**Warning:** I did some pretty horrible things to Kate this chapter, but don't take this out on me I only write things that are relevant to the story as a whole.

**Chapter Summary:** For some people being told that you're beautiful is the best complement one could ever get. Well, not for Kate, not like this! Kate has troubles opening up to Sawyer when a face from her past is on every man she sees.

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"_Mummy, I wanna go to the beach!" The little four year old girl said in a slight sing-a-song tone as she stood in the doorway of her parent's bedroom._

_Her light hazel eyes studied her parents cautiously from the doorway, they didn't look at her too consumed on each other's gaze, they looked sad, but the little girl only cared about going to the beach. She had already put on her pink bathing suit and was now anxiously waiting._

"_Just wait a minute, Katherine!" Her mother told her, looking at her with teary eyes._

"_But I wanna go now!" She stomped her foot on the floor._

"_Go wait in the hall, Katie!" Her father said in stern tone unusual for his caring soul, his eyes were as red as her mother's._

_Kate obeyed a little disappointed, what was the point of going to the beach house, if they couldn't go to the beach? She left the door open to make sure they didn't take long. She overheard their conversation without understanding much of what would happen next._

"_Is this about Wayne?" Her father asked_

"_No, I… I…" She stopped unsure of how to finish, "I just don't love you anymore, Sam!" _

"_Yeah, you say that like you are not going to run straight into his arms as soon as I agree with the divorce." He snarled and then a thought crossed his mind. "You ain't taking Katie away from me, are you?"_

_They were silent for moments just looking at each other, thinking the conversation was finished Kate went into the bedroom again._

"_Mummy, you said we could go to the beach after four, you promised!" Kate insisted_

_Diane's head fell with embarrassment when she realized that she wasn't planning on sharing custody of Kate. She turned away from her soon to be ex-husband. _

"_Let's go, Katherine," she said capturing the girl's little hand into hers._

_He watched as mother and daughter left the room, to him the scene was an ironic metaphor, it was probably the last time he was going to see them like this. He ran his hands through his hair, trying hard not to cry, but the sound of Kate's content giggles were torture to his heart. He loved that little girl so much._

"_What are we doing, mummy?" Kate asked looking up at her mother, worry apparent on Diane's face even though she tried not to show it._

_They were standing on the beach, looking out into the calm horizon. The waves came and went in hypnotizing rhythm, burying them with wet sand._

"_We are sinking, Katherine." She answered with a sweet smile, though her voice still bearing signs of crying. "You see, every time a wave comes, we sink a little more."_

"_Cool!" Kate said attentive to her feet being buried in the sand. They stayed quiet for a while, until it stopped being fun for Kate. "I want to go swim in the ocean."_

"_I'll take her!" Sam said behind them, Kate ran into his arms, he caught her in mid air, swinging her. The sound of Kate's hysterical laugh was music to his ear. He placed her on his shoulder for a fun piggy back ride and went into the ocean._

"_I'll take her Diane," he said again as he passed by her, "you just stay there and sink!" He stressed the last word with a bitter tone._

----------------------

Kate looked around the makeshift kitchen, she felt strange being back at the beach camp, she hated that Jack was protecting that Juliet woman, the same woman once had a gun pointed at her. Jack was their supposed leader and he was turning a blind eye on Juliet. Kate didn't feel good about this, she didn't know if she was afraid, jealous or guilty.

Her stomach made a loud noise, and she knew that right now she felt hungry. She looked around the Dharma products and finally saw it. Oatmeal!

"Oh, yes!" She said to herself, preparing her food on a bowl. Who would ever say she'd be eating oatmeal in a somewhat deserted island!

She ate in silence enjoying the taste of oatmeal, and for that long moment she was able to forget everything. She watched from the corner of her eyes as Jack approached completely aware of his presence.

"Hey!" She called him when he apparently ignored her.

"Hey!" He answered

"The oatmeal's awesome," she said trying to make conversation

"It is, huh."

"It's strange huh," She tried picking up a conversation again.

"What's that?"

"Being back, not ,looking for a way out of a cage, not finding a reason to go running off into the jungle again, I almost don't know what to do with myself." She smiled at him, trying to find the caring old Jack she came to like.

"Well enjoy it, I'm sure something will go wrong soon enough." He joked and Kate laughed, a little relieved.

"Well my big dangerous adventure for tonight is gonna be doing the dishes, in the ocean."

"Be careful!" He joked again

"I'll try," she looked straight into his eyes in flirting manner that he totally ignored.

"Erm, can I borrow that spoon." He mentioned for the one in Kate's hand.

"Yeah," She answered bringing the spoon to her mouth, licking it clean, trying to look sensuous and passed it to him.

"Thanks," he said coldly taking the spoon, "goodnight!"

"Yeah goodnight," she sounded disappointed.

Kate grabbed the dishes and watched him retreating, with two bowls on his hand, he went towards Juliet, she accepted a bowl he handed her, they were laughing, Kate could tell from the distant. They sat and begun to eat together, chatting as if she was his old time friend.

Kate felt like her stomach was turning upside down. But this time it was not because of hunger. She went into the ocean, to do the dishes as she said she would. Her mind still on the two of them and Kate couldn't help but repeat to herself how much she hated that woman.

She hated her and her calm sweet voice, her cold blue eyes and perfect blond hair. Well, not as perfect as it used to be, now that she was living on the beach with them; shampoo and moisturizer were not an option. Kate couldn't understand how Jack couldn't see past all her fake façade. She was the enemy, living amongst them, stealing the heart of someone very dear and important for their group.

She hated Jack too, he was supposed to make decisions, but apparently he has free willingly been compromised. There wasn't one thing that this woman ever said that was true, and it would take her a lot more than sweet talk to convince Kate that Juliet was one of them now and not an Other anymore.

But mostly she hated herself for everything that was happening. She knew deep inside that Jack was taking Juliet in just to rub her on her face. Because Jack had seen her and Sawyer together on the surveillance monitors and he now wanted to prove to her he had moved on. She had needed Sawyer that night, she had needed to feel loved. The way they were treating them back at the hydra, she needed to know that there still were good people left!

Kate frowned for a moment, when she thought that maybe Jack wasn't on their side anymore, what if he and Juliet were there on a taking over mission? He spent one week with the Others, maybe he'd been brainwashed. She knew they were capable of that!

Kate finished the dishes and when she brought it back to the kitchen Jack and Juliet were still eating together. She tried to ignore it, but her heart ached as Jack whispered on Juliet's ear and she smiled coyly.

Two could play this game, Kate thought leaving the kitchen to Sawyer's tent, she let herself in without warning.

"What my doorbell busted again?" He asked lying on the floor, "what the hell are you doing?" He asked again as she got on top of him, straddling him.

"Shut up and don't talk." She hissed taking his mouth on hers forcefully, Sawyer felt a salty taste on his mouth.

"You crying?" He asked holding her face on his hand to look at her.

"I said shut up." She kissed him again, moving down his jaw, working her way down to his chest.

"You got it!" Sawyer knew something was wrong, but they had done this before, he wasn't going to stop her now. Kate reached down between them unzipping his pants.

----------------------

_Sam cut the engine of his car parking in front of his ex-wife's house. He looked at the poor old house shaking his h__ead, he didn't understand why Diane would trade everything they had for this. His gaze fell on the car mirror and watched Kate sleeping soundly on the back seat. He was mesmerized at how big she was getting. She was seven now, and was getting so smart._

_He didn't want to wake her up so he decided to carry her inside. He jumped off the car and opened the back door. Her cheeks were round with light freckles all over them. He couldn't help but caress one chubby cheek with his thumb. Kate fluttered her eyes open and they shared a smile._

"_We're here, Katie," he announced leaning on the car, he wished he could have a few more hours with her. "You tired?"_

"_Yeah," she nodded her head stretching her arms, "and my body hurts too!"_

"_Spending the day hunting deer is not for everyone, is it?"_

"_No, it's not!" She agreed, "dad, why didn't we kill the deer?" She asked confused._

"_The thrill is in chasing it, not killing it," he explained, "here, I'll carry you."_

_He unbuckled her and picked her up supporting her on his hip, the girl leaned her head on his shoulder for comfort. He closed the car, walked up the porch stairs and knocked on the door. A very tired looking Diane answered._

"_Hi!" She exclaimed simply_

"_Hi!" He answered, "I have a deliver for you," he joked, "she slept on the ride here." Diane nodded her head. _

"_Do you want to come in?" Diane asked politely._

"_I'm not sure…"_

"_Yes, daddy, come in!" Kate cut him lifting her head to look at him with pleading eyes. "I wanna show you my report card."_

"_I guess it wouldn't hurt to stay just a little."_

_He entered the house and put Kate on the floor, she rushed to her bedroom still a little dizzy from her nap. He and Diane waited on the living room, still standing up in complete silence. A truck door being slammed was heard. Diane became even more uncomfortable at the sound. Wayne came in through the front door a while later, and he looked mad at Sam._

"_Here Daddy," Kate came back into the living room with her report card in hand, "straight As!" She said proud of herself._

"_Wow!" Sam exclaimed picking it up to look at it, "That's excellent, Katie!" He messed her hair up with his hand, "I gotta go now, sweetie," he returned her report card, and Kate pouted, "You be a good girl!" He ordered kissing her forehead._

"_Bye, Daddy!" She waived him a said goodbye and watched him go through the window._

_The three kept in silence as they heard Sam pulling his car out of their property._

"_Put dinner on the table, woman!" Wayne demanded as he went to the bathroom to wash the day off of him._

_Kate helped her mother set up the table quietly, because she knew that's how things worked on this house. They dinned just as quiet. Diane tried to strike up a conversation asking Kate about her day with her father, what only helped to anger Wayne even more._

"_Then we followed the deer and it lead us to her herd." Kate finished her story excited, "my dad is so cool!"_

"_You love your father, don't you?" Diane asked innocently and Kate answered with a nod and a smile. _

"_Do you love him, Diane?" Wayne asked finally breaking his silence, anger evident on his voice._

"_No, why are you asking me this?" Diane avoided his face, she looked down her plate playing with the food._

"_Yes, you do!" He shouted, __Kate looked at him scared. "Are you sleeping with him?"_

"_Wayne, please, not in front of Katherine."_

"_Answer my question!" He shouted again, this time fisting the table. "Are you sleeping with him?"_

"_Go to your room, sweetheart," her mother ordered with fear evident on her face._

_Kate made a nervous retreat to her bedroom. She went into her favorite hiding place, the wardrobe. She sat there covering her ears, but the sound of Wayne's shouts still came unbidden. She overheard him hitting her mother and other things a child her age wasn't supposed to hear._

----------------------

Kate had been feeling awful all day, she felt bad about what she did to Sawyer, but kept telling herself that he deserved it, even if she didn't believe. She went for a hike, looking for some mystery that needed solving, some problem that needed fixing, but she found nothing! The island was quietly calm today.

She tried to ignore everyone, she needed to be alone, but when the afternoon hit she knew she should get back before it was dark. It didn't take long for Sawyer to find her. She was refreshing with the water from the trough when he approached her holding a cassette tape.

"What's this?" She asked confused

"Your mix tape," she laughed remembering his joke about needing to make her a mix tape. "Well you gonna take it or ain't ya?" She got it from his hand and read the name.

"The best of Phil Collins," she read aloud.

"Don't get picky." He said a little irritated, "and if Bernard asks, I don't know a thing about it."

"Thanks, James."

"So why'd you jump me last night?" He asked what she was running from all day.

"What?"

"Was it cause you saw the Doc hanging out with Juliet?" He asked surprised at how much it hurt him to say it aloud.

"It is not like that," she tried to save what little dignity she still had left.

"It's not?" He was still hurt that she didn't even admit it. "You ain't gotta use me freckles, all you gotta do is ask." He said and left to his tent.

She watched him go, as guilty took over her. She felt so embarrassed for using him like that. Sure he had probably used a lot of women before. It was good for him to taste some of his own medicine. But it didn't help her to feel better. The guilty soon turned into anger. How dare he accuse her of something like this?

She got to her feet and made her way to his tent. He was sitting on a plane chair, reading a book. He looked at her, his glasses on the tip of his nose. He had that same frown, the one he used when he was trying to look like a badass, and she knew was just a façade.

"I said it was not like that!" Her voice was different, it wasn't sweet, it was filled with emotion.

"What do you expect me to think?" He tried to keep his voice low, knowing that if wall had ears, the ears on the tarp around his tent were ten times better. "First you sleep with me out of pity the night you thought they were gonna kill me, and then you jump me for no particular reason and I find out you saw Jack and Juliet having a candle light dinner before you came to me."

"Do you realize what you are accusing me of?" She asked now inside his tent.

"Yes, I do!" He said firmly, they stared at each other, their faces red.

Kate knocked the book out of his hand in a fit of rage, it startled him, she kneeled on the floor in front of him, held his face in place with her hands and kissed him on the lips. Sawyer had no problems returning the kiss. He was starting enjoy this little play they had going. Kate seemed to like it rough.

"I love it when you're mad at me!" She whispered nibbling on his ear.

"What, you want me to spank you?" She lifted her head, looking at him, she imitated his frowning. "So what is it now, did Jack and Juliet went up the hill?" She hit him across the face and he whined with pain. "Easy, Freckles I said spanking not hitting."

She kept her eyes locked with his and she worked the bottoms of his shirt exposing his well built torso. She ran her fingers through his skin, and kissed down his chest.

----------------------

_Kate was sitting on the bed writing on her journal, her room was messy, with dirty clothes lying all around, __the bedroom of a normal 14 year old. It was illuminated only by the lamp on her nightstand. Her mother was working late tonight and Wayne had already gone to bed. She took the opportunity to call Tom to invite him over. _

_Minutes later she giggled when she hear a knock on her window. Young Tom stood on the outside of the house, she opened the window to let him in. They looked __awkwardly__ at each other for a while._

"_This is for you," he handed her a letter, she opened to read it, but he stopped her. "You don't have to read it now."_

"_But I want to!" She protested and he agreed._

_They sat next to each other on the floor on to the foot of the bed. Tom watched tenderly as Kate read his letter. He liked how her expression seemed to change from a smile to a sweet dazzled look. He wished that moment never had to end, he wanted to stay there looking at her beautiful face, feeling the delicious heat from her body, smelling her lavender perfume. He didn't understand those new found feelings, but he liked them a lot._

"_It's beautiful, Tom." She whispered after reading, "thanks!" She held the letter to her heart._

"_After we kissed this afternoon I wanted to tell you all those things." Tom said staring at her full red lips with desire, they curved into a smile._

_They both closed their eyes, meeting their lips together slowly. They kissed gently, exploring each other's mouth a little bolder than their first kiss. _

_The door of Kate's bedroom opened with a creak that startled the young couple. Wayne stood in the doorway, he reached for the switch and the lights flicked on. Tom and Kate got to their feet afraid of the man before them. _

"_I thought I heard a noise," Wayne sounded like he was about to explode with anger, which frightened young Tom even more. "And here I find a rat on my daughter's bedroom."_

"_I'm not your daughter!" Kate wouldn't accept him treating her like he always treated her mother, because she was stronger than her mother ever was. Or at least she thought she was._

"_You stay out of this, Kate!" He pointed a finger at her and turned his attention back at the boy._

"_I… I… came through the window" Tom stuttered,_

"_Sneaking in just like a rat!" Wayne commented, "how about you sneak out and never come back again?"_

"_I'll stay if Kate wants me to stay!" Tom held his head high, he would do anything to protect Kate._

"_How dare you, you little…" Wayne closed his hand into a fist and went in the direction of the young man_

"_Wayne!" Kate put a hand on the man's chest stopping him before he reached her boyfriend, "Tom is on his way." Kate said looking at Tom with pleading eyes. She just wanted this to be over with._

"_Are you sure, Kate?" Tom asked and Kate nodded her head, "All right see you around." Tom agreed, not sure if he had better stay._

_He looked Wayne in the eyes silently threatening to kill him if he lay a finger on Kate's hair. He then left the house though her window. Wayne stared at the window to make sure the boy was really gone. Kate watched Wayne with hate._

"_I didn't know you already did those kinds of things, Kate." Wayne finally said._

"_It's none of your business!" Kate hated that man so much, she hated what he did to her mother she wanted to kill him, maybe one day she would have the guts._

_Kate watched him confused as he looked her up and down. "I hadn't realized you are growing up so fast, you are getting beautiful. No wonder boys are starting to sneak around." He came closer to her and she could sniff the horrible smell of booze on his breath. She wanted to puke. "I wonder what other things have you already done and are not telling us!" He whispered in her ears._

_Kate's heart was pounding like mad as Wayne's hand came to rest on her hip. His hands actually burned her skin, she wanted to scream for him to stop, but she just stood there and let him sneak his hand inside her shirt rooming around her bare skin. Her mind screamed and kicked but her body didn't react, it was like she was numb._

----------------------

Kate and Sawyer lay in the floor panting and basking in the afterglow of their love making, Sawyer had a satisfied smile on his face while Kate still looked worried, even though she tried to hide it from the man beside her.

"Wow, you were great!" Sawyer whispered kissing her neck

"Thanks," she met his lips with hers, "so were you!" She said into his mouth.

Sawyer ended the kiss bringing Kate closer to rest her head on his chest. They lay there, just savoring on each other's presence. Sawyer always liked this part, when two lovers just cuddled together, holding each other close, thinking nothing else matter in the world. Kate always hated this part, she always felt dirty and it was when regret started to take over.

She stared at a spot, trying to distant herself. She tried not to think about the consequences of what had just happened. They had slept together three times now. They couldn't go on pretending this was just a one nightstand. And even though she tried to tell herself that Sawyer was the kind of guy who didn't do serious relationship, the way he was acting around her seemed to tell her otherwise.

He had even confessed that he loved her. Did Sawyer really love her? Could she go on with him knowing that he loved her? She didn't want to admit it, but deep down inside she thought she was using him. Not in the same way Jack was using Juliet. She needed Sawyer, she needed to feel loved, to feel him loving her with his hands with his lips.

"You haven't listened to a word I said," Sawyer's comment brought her back, and she realized she was so consumed on her thoughts she had ignored him completely.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?"

She felt him inhaling deeply, he then pulled himself up to a sitting position. She did the same, using the blanket to cover her naked body. She couldn't bring herself to look him in the eye, and she could feel him staring at her.

"Let's have it, Freckles!"

"What?" She asked looking at him with lost puppy eyes.

"What's the matter? Why are you this way? Why are you so distant?" He asked and she didn't answer, he shook his head. "When we first arrived here, I would look at you and this little mystery that you got going sort of turned me on." He confessed, "but now, it is starting to piss me off."

"I'm sorry you feel that way," she tried to shut herself out again looking away from him so he held her hand not ready to let her go yet.

"What we did, who we were before we got to this island, it doesn't matter." He said, "In my whole life, I never wanted this," he mentioned them both, "but now I do! I was hoping you would feel the same." When she didn't answer he continued, "is this because of what I did? Because I was a con artist, and stole money and wrecked families? Because if it is, Freckles, I got news for you, I wasn't the one being brought in hand cuff."

"You don't know what you are talking about," she snarled, with that same voice she used when he had accused her of using him.

"Yes, I do." He answered with the same tone she used. "Once you told me you killed a man; was it your husband?" She didn't answer just kept on avoiding his gaze, "Just tell what the hell it is that you did. I'm tired of trying to figure you out!"

"Why do you care so much?"

"Because I love you, I wanna hold ya and tell ya it wasn't that bad, that it didn't matter!" When she looked down again, he held her face with his hand and brought it closer to his, "just tell me!" He whispered

"I can't," she cried, "It hurts too much!"

"I wanna make it better!" He insisted, she looked into his eyes, taking a moment to gather courage.

"When… when I was five, my parents split up and my mother shacked up with this guy Wayne." Kate's tear now poured down her face nonstop, it hurt to finally tell someone what she hid all these years.

"That the same guy you told me I reminded you off?" He asked with curiosity.

"Yes," Kate admitted and sniffed before continuing, "My father told me my mother and Wayne were having an affair, and that's why they got divorced. I've always hated him because he broke my family apart," Sawyer swallowed, thinking that he had done that this a lot of times, and maybe that was the reason why Kate acted so strange around him.

"My father wanted to take me with him, so he hired a lawyer and claimed that my mother couldn't get custody of me because she was living in sin. So she and Wayne got married, and I went to live with them, on the bedroom next to theirs." She looked Sawyer in the eyes, she found sympathy there, found strength to go on.

"And I listened, as he beat her up, every night he got home drunk. I listened to her crying alone, but I was too afraid of him to help her. I was afraid he would come to my bedroom one night and do to me what he did to her." Kate broke down again, "And one nigh he did!" She confessed between tears.

Sawyer held her, she accepted his comfort. She cried into his protective embrace as his hands caressed her back. She cried her heart out, because she had never allowed herself to do it before. Because she thought she shouldn't cry, because somehow she thought she deserve what Wayne had done to her.

"It was horrible, I wanted him to stop, but I did nothing to stop him. I just stood there numbly as he did to me whatever he pleased."

"I'm sorry, Kate!" Sawyer kissed the top of her head, whipping her eyes with his thumb.

"One night, I… I… I couldn't live with the thought of his touch on me anymore. So I blew him up and just rode off." Sawyer ran his hand through her hair, "I thought I was free from him forever, but then we came to this island, and it is as if he is all around this place. As if he is still watching me, with those sordid eyes of his. He's everywhere, he's in you, he's in Jack, he's in every man I see." Kate remembered what happened a few weeks earlier. "It happened again, you know?"

"What happened?"

"When the Others kidnapped us, they put you in a cage, but I only joined after a while, right?" Sawyer nodded his head, "that's because they were doing that to me again."

Sawyer closed his eyes as range begun to rise up on his chest. "Why didn't you tell me? I would have killed them! Who did it?!" Kate shook her head, "who did it, Kate?" He asked again this time more insistent.

"I don't know, I don't know his name. But it felt like it was Wayne!"

"I hate them, when I put my hands in one of them, I swear I'm gonna kill!"

"No," Kate looked up at Sawyer, she put her hand on Sawyer's face to caress him. "I could never get the murder off my heart, I don't want you to have it in yours!" He nodded and kissed her lovingly on the lips.

"Tell me something, Kate."

"Yes"

"Doesn't it bother you? When I kiss you, when I hold, doesn't it bother you?"

"A little, but…"

"Then why are we doing this? I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

"Because I need to feel like I am allowing you to touch me! I need to feel you touching me with love!" He smiled sweetly at her.

"Sleep me with me here tonight, Freckles." He asked lying on the floor and bringing her with him. "I want you to sleep on my arms tonight."

"Yes, Sawyer anything for you." They kissed and closed their eyes surrendering to sleep.

----------------------

_The three of them ate in silence, not an unusual thing to happen__, Diane thought. But Katherine was awfully different these days. She refused to address to Wayne, and would ignore her mother as well. Now that her daughter was fourteen Diane worried that she might be in some teenager related problems._

"_I'm going to work late tonight," Diane was the only one who still tried to start a conversation at the table, she still insisted on the pretence that they were a normal family. _

_Kate snapped her head up suddenly interested on the conversation. Her mother noticed she was pale and her eyes were wide with a feeling she couldn't quite place. _

"_I'll probably get home early in the morning."_

"_Ma," Diane was surprised to hear her daughter, "since you ain't gonna to be here, can I sleep at Lisa's?" Her mother looked at her surprised, Kate tried to avoid Wayne's gaze. "We have a project to finish."_

"_I don't know, Katherine, it's a school night," she thought for a minute, "no, I don't think Lisa's mother would approve." Wayne smirked at Kate for a brief moment; Kate looked down at her plate. "You can finish the project some other time."_

_The clock sounded announcing it was half past seven. Kate looked at the watch in the living room, to be sure the time was right. She knew this was the usual time her mother left when she worked the night shift. She wished time had skipped back an hour._

"_Oh, my God, look at the time!" Diane said, "I better get going." She got up already on her uniform and put on jacket._

_She came over to kiss Kate on the forehead then she gave Wayne a peck on the lips. He held her by the wrist. Kate watched them from the corner of her eyes. He pulled Diane closer to sit on his lap demanding a proper kiss. She granted him, Kate felt sick as Wayne's hand traveled up her mother's thigh, sliding inside her skirt. Kate shut her eyes, trying to mentally get out of there but failing completely._

"_Wayne, please I gotta go to work!" Diane pleaded pushing his hand away._

"_Ok, I'm gonna miss you honey." He told her giving her one last kiss._

"_I'll miss you to, I love you." She got to her feet and made her way out of the house._

_Wayne watched Diane go with desire then turned his gaze upon Kate. She didn't know how to act around him anymore, she just kept eating in silence looking at a spot on the wall while Wayne's eyes never left her. When Kate finished he got up and stretched._

"_You do the dishes, I'll be watching TV." He got comfortable on his chair putting his feet up on the coffee table, the noise of the TV filled the room. Kate washed the dishes, praying to God that was the only he would have her do. But to her misery once the water stopped running he called her. "Hey, girl, come here."_

_Kate obeyed and seconds later she was standing in front of him, fear expressed on her face._

"_Take my boots off, will ya?" Kate did what she was told, knowing that had always been her mother's job. Kate also noticed his eyes were on her and not on the TV. She put his boots on the floor next to him. "Now go get me a blanket, it's chilly."_

_As she walked toward the master bedroom the walls around the hall seemed to be closing around her, making it hard to breath. It was the first time she was in their bedroom and it creep her out. It seemed like she could see him hitting her mother. Kate wanted to get out of there fast. She picked the blanket that was on the bed and left in a fast pace. She covered Wayne with it._

"_May I be excused now?" Kate asked and Wayne laughed,_

"_You are such a good girl, Kate!" He told her, "I wish your mother was more like you, I wouldn't have to beat her up all the time." Kate inhaled trying to council her hate. "Yes, you may go to your room now."_

_She took a quick shower and got inside the covers, thinking that the covers were keeping her safe in a protective bubble. But she couldn't rest, she was afraid to close her eyes and let sleep take her over. She couldn't sleep, and she was right to be afraid. Her heart skipped a bit and she forgot to breathe when she heard the familiar creak sound of her door being pushed open._

_Wayne had come and took what he wanted, and she had let him without protest. He kept holding her while he slept peacefully on her bed. She on the other hand was wide awake, relieving the hell she had been put through. She felt so dirty. _

----------------------

Kate lay wide awake in the warm sand floor. Usually when she was having trouble sleeping she would stir until sleep won her over. That night stirring wasn't an option she realized watching the muscular figure of Sawyer's back. She had stayed with him, holding him until he drift off to sleep. She was jealous of how fast he could sleep.

As mighty as she tried she couldn't help but be reminded of Wayne, and those sleepless night he would come to her and hold her in his sleep as if she was his property. Kate shook her head and started to dress herself up, she had to get out of there. Unfortunately for her, Sawyer had woken with her moving.

"Hey, where you going?" He asked with a hoarse voice

"I can't sleep if I'm not in my own tent," she lied!

"Fine, let's go to your tent," he said without a clue.

Kate buried her face in her hands, trying to think a way out of this without hurting Sawyer's feelings.

"Erm... It's nothing personal, it's just... old habits, you know?"

"Fine, scram." Sawyer finally took the hint and tried to use humor as a defense mechanism by pushing her of his blanket that he used as a bed. Kate laughed glad that he was ok with that. "You want me to walk you home?"

"It's five tents I think I'll make it." She also chose humor, not wanting to admit aloud that she just needed to be alone.

"Sure, I gotta pee anyway."

"That is so romantic." She smiled and kissed him before leaving.

Kate concentrated on each step she took; it was only when she got safe inside her own tent that she allowed herself to cry. She was scared because Wayne's face was still haunting her memory.

----------------------

_Kate was sitting in the porch of her mother's house holding a picture in her right hand. She was making a scrapbook for Sam's birthday and had got that picture from Sam's work colleagues. She looked at Sam in the picture, he was smiling at her in an army uniform, he looked young and handsome it was easy to see why her mother had come to fall in love in with him._

_Kate turned the picture over. She had lost count of how many times she had read what was written in a faded black ink. Maybe she was hoping she had missed something, or read something wrong, but the text never seemed to change. "Korea," she read aloud. She remembered her mother telling her that Sam had lived in Korea for two years, and that was what drove their marriage to the edge. If only he had never gone to Korea!_

_Kate was now 24 years old, she had already come to terms with her parent's divorce. And even though she visited Sam less often now, she loved him even more than she did when she was little, when he used to take her hiking. And that was why it hurt her so much to read what was written in the back of the picture._

_But Korea wasn't the part that was bothering her, no! What never failed to hurt her was the date written under Korea, "March 1977," she read her voice filling up with hate. This picture had told her something new that she didn't know about her parents._

_Confusion was her first reaction when she read the funny date, because 1977 was an especial year for her, she soon thought of her birth date, June second of 1977, she had told it so many times it rolled out of her tongue as easily as her own name. Then she was hit with the truth and then anger._

_She put the picture in the back pocket of her jeans when she heard Wayne's truck approaching in the distance. She breathed determined playing with Wayne's Zippo lighter that she picked up on his drawer. '_A nice touch_,' she thought. The sound of country music got louder as he pulled up. She could tell he was drunk just by looking at him as he got out. _

"_Well, heya, girl!" He exclaimed surprised to see her, "what are you doing here?" He asked because she had moved out of their house when she was 17 after she got her first job as a check out girl, now she lived in a rented apartment in the city. "Hey, there!" He grabbed her for support and it annoyed her. _

"_Alright, let's get you to bed." She helped him in the house as he stumbled all around, "watch your step, watch your step." _

"_What the hell is that smell?!" He asked intrigued as they passed through the kitchen. _

"_Probably your breath!" She answered still annoyed._

"_Sha, right…" _

"_Come on," She put him in bed and took off his shoes, she had used to this a lot when she still lived on that house._

"_You're beautiful," He looked at her mesmerized, it had been a long time since he last saw her, and she had now lost her sweet girlish features and had turned into stunning beautiful woman. "Hey. Hey! I just gave you a compliment." He whined when she ignored him. _

"_Yeah, I heard you!" She put a blanket on him_

"_Aren't you going to take my pants off first?" He asked remembering the good old times, she flinched and he grabbed her arms. She looked at him with those light hazel eyes. "You're beautiful!" He repeated and she jerked her arms away with disgust._

"_Good night," she said and started to leave, she was almost out the door, when her curiosity won her over. "Tell me something, Wayne." Her voice was starting to get shaky._

"_Yes," he said with his eyes closed._

"_Did you know I was your daughter?" She asked hating how bad the question sounded. He smirked and opened his eyes._

"_So that's why you're here," he laughed sarcastically, "how did you find out?"_

"_You knew," her voice trembled with hate, "then why did you… why did you…. why…" She could bring herself to say it aloud._

"_Hey__, I planted a seed, I watched it grow. Don't cha think I disserve to eat the first fruit?" He smirked again, "Now how about you helping me with my pants!" He closed his eyes finally surrendering to sleep and Kate watched him discussed._

_She had finally set her mind, she existed the house on a rush. She mounted on her motorcycle and hesitated one last time. Kate started the motorcycle and rode off. The house exploded behind her. _

----------------------

**Author's Note**: Please don't hate me for doing all those horrible things to Kate, I'm not a sadistic, believe me. I told you I didn't intent for this chapter to get so dark, it just sort of came to me. I actually have an excuse for doing this to Kate. My excuse is that the writers of Lost have hinted that these things did happen to her and they have stimulated my imagination. So please blame them, not me!

_Evidence number # 1_ - On the episode 2.09 - What Kate Did; after Wayne takes over Sawyer's body and Kate runs for her life, Jack finds her in the jungle, when he holds her Kate has fit, and struggles to break free. Basing on her conversation with Wayne at his death bed, literately, we could assume by his "Aren't you going to take my pants off first?" comment that he saw her with other eyes other than just as his alleged step daughter. So my take on the scene when Jack held Kate was that she thought he was Wayne just like Sawyer was for a brief moment, she remembered when her father used to hold her like that and she just wanted to make him stop. Oh, I also know that in this same episode Kate told the U.S. Marshal that Wayne never touched her, but that could have been denial.

_Evidence number # 2 -_ On the episode 3.01 – A Tale of Two Cities; when Jack, Sawyer and Kate arrive at the hydra and Kate is taken to Ben, he asks her to put on handcuffs. When Tom puts Kate on her cage he comments "They scratched you pretty bad, didn't they?" Meaning that the handcuffs had scratched her wrists. But she had them on for like half a day, they wouldn't hurt her that bad unless somebody made sure they did. On that scene Kate looked completely lost, she didn't look like she had been beat, she looked like she had been raped. So my take on this is that Ben, having read Kate's file would know how Wayne used to treat her and would want to make her vulnerable by doing the same.

_Evidence number # 3 -_ On the episode 3.06 – I do; when Jack asks her "did they hurt?" Kate simply breaks down and cries. I'm sure they did hurt her.


	4. You’re Bad

**You'****re Bad**  
[Chapter 03 – Part 04 of 12]

**Author's Note:** As always flashbacks are in italics, and I'm not a native English speaker, this fiction has not been proof read.

This is mostly Sawyer centric, how he deals with Kate's behavior. I'd say this chapter is mainly Skate with some Suliet at the end, so watch out. I had fun writing it, it's not the first time I write from the perspective of a male character, but that's always hard to do, since I'm a woman. Sawyer is such an interesting character though. I love how he's always angry.

**Chapter Summary:** "Dear Mr. Sawyer, You don't know who I am, but I know who you are and I know what you done!" Sawyer deals with a promise he made to Kate while some skeletons on his closet decide to come back to haunt him.

----------------------

_Sawyer paced around his cage. He was there because M__ichael was a traitor and had led him, Kate and Jack into a trap, they were captured by the Others while Michael and Walt were set free and Sawyer hadn't seen either of them since the Others put a bag over his head. He didn't know which worried him more._

_The fact that he was in an animal cage in the middle of the haunted jungle; that the kid who tried to help him escape had probably been sent out to die; that miss Kara Zor-El had shot him with a teaser weapon; that he had no idea what they had done to Kate; or the fact that he was starving and these people weren't exactly familiar with Human basic needs._

_Sawyer __sat on the floor and stretched to reach for a rock outside of his cage. When he finally grabbed the rock he placed it on one of the levers on the floor and threw his shoe at another lever. He pushed the button and it no longer electrocuted him. A cheesy carnival like congratulatory song played through the speaker and a voice repeated "Reward."_

_Sawyer smiled with victory, he started to dance with the tune, only to get a disappointed look on his face when all that dropped down the chute was a large fish biscuit that Sawyer picked up. "Oh, come on, Unbelievable!" He cursed and a pile of food pellets dropped down the chute next as Sawyer bit the cracker, not really pleased with his meal. Water started coming out of a pipe. He got to his knees and drunk away his thirst._

"_Keep moving!" Sawyer recognized the voice of the man who had took Karl and whose name he knew was Tom, Sawyer turned to find him escorting Kate inside the cage in front of his. Sawyer breathed relieved._

"_Stick your arms out through the bars; I'll take off your cuffs," Tom told her and she obeyed, "they scratched you up pretty bad, didn't they? I'll bring you some anti-septic later." _

"_How about you bring me an ottoman?" Sawyer said trying to get the man's attention, "while you're at it I could use a blow dry." Tom turned away from Kate and made his way towards Sawyer's cage. _

"_Hey, you got yourself a fish biscuit. How'd you do that?" Tom asked his voice was sweet, carrying and somewhat patronizing, as if he was talking to a kid._

"_I figured out your complicated gizmos, that's how."_

"_Only took the bears 2 hours," Tom teased and left._

"_How many of them were there?" Sawyer screamed at his retreating figure, after getting no answers he turned to Kate, she had a lost look on her face. "You okay, Freckles?"_

_For a moment she seemed to hesitate, maybe reliving the hell she had been put through before they brought her to her cage. Sawyer didn't know, all that matter was that the look on her face made his heart beat faster. She tried so hard not to show that she was weak, that she didn't need his concern._

"_Yeah. You?" She asked back._

"_Just swell. I requested that cage, but whatever." He joked, "nice dress!" He commented confused by the fact that last time he saw her she was wearing her usual outfit, khaki pants and thank top._

"_They made me wear it," there was something hidden in the way she said that, maybe hurt, maybe fear. Sawyer couldn't quite place it._

"_You hungry?" He asked and she nodded her head eagerly._

_He__ tossed her his barely eaten fish biscuit, he could ways get another one. She took the biscuit in the air, he watched her eating it. She tried to hide it, but he could tell that she was crying. If she didn't want to talk to him about it there was nothing he could do to help her. But seeing Kate trying to deal with her demons alone was hurting Sawyer more than he cared to admit. _

----------------------

Kate shook her head and started to dress herself up, she had to get out of there. Unfortunately for her, Sawyer had woken with her moving.

"Hey, where you going?" He asked with a hoarse voice

"I can't sleep if I'm not in my own tent," she lied!

"Fine, let's go to your tent," he said without a clue.

Kate buried her face in her hands, trying to think a way out of this without hurting Sawyer's feelings.

"Erm... It's nothing personal, it's just... old habits, you know?"

"Fine, scram." Sawyer finally took the hint and tried to use humor as a defense mechanism by pushing her of his blanket that he used as a bed. Kate laughed glad that he was ok with that. "You want me to walk you home?"

"It's five tents I think I'll make it." She also chose humor, not wanting to admit aloud that she just needed to be alone.

"Sure, I gotta pee anyway."

"That is so romantic." She smiled and kissed him before leaving. Sawyer followed her out, not before grabbing his gun and tucking it under his belt and jeans. When he got outside he saw Jin and Hurley outside another tent.

"What the hell are y'all doing?" Sawyer asked

"What the hell are you doing?" Hurley asked back looking nervous.

"Going to take a leak."

"Yeah well, so were we," Hurley still looked nervous

"Well alright then," Sawyer didn't care if they were keeping a secret, it was Hugo and Jin, what secret could they be keeping?

Sawyer walked to the trees away from the camp, he unzipped his pants preparing to alleviate himself when he heard a noise behind him. He reached for his gun and spun around point it randomly. John Locke finally revealed himself holding a torch.

"Hello James," he greeted, they stared at each other, Sawyer refused to lower the gun, "wanna zip your pants up?"

"The hell are you doing here?" He said after zipping up his pants.

"Looking for you actually."

"Ok, Tarzan, so now that you're back from your blow up everything that could get us off the Island tour, how bout you tell me why you joined up with the damn enemy."

"I didn't join them. I infiltrated them."

"You're undercover with the Others," Sawyer commented sarcastically.

"That's right," John confirmed.

"But how about you give me one reason to believe that?"

"Because a few hours ago I snuck into Ben's tent and kidnapped him. I tied him up, dragged him off into the jungle."

"And you came all the way back here to tell me this because...?" Sawyer asked still not believing.

"Because this is the same man who tortured you, beat you, humiliated you. And I want you, to kill him." They were in silence for a while.

"You want him dead, you kill him."

"I'm not a murderer," John stated.

"Neither am I!"

"Except for the man you killed in Sydney. They got files on us, James. All of us!"

"Yeah well their file's got their facts wrong."

"Then I made a mistake coming to you. Please don't tell anyone that I was here." John walked away leaving Sawyer alone.

"Hey stop," Sawyer ordered, but John kept moving, so he lifted up his gun again. "I said stop!" He yelled, but John still kept going. "Dammit! Wait up."

Sawyer followed unaware of John satisfied smile. They kept moving through the dark jungle and Sawyer couldn't believe he was actually doing this. What did he think he was doing? Did John really believe he was simply going kill Ben? Did John think he was that cold?

For one this gave Sawyer the opportunity to keep the promise he made to Kate, he was finally going to put his hand on not only one of them, but actually their leader! Sawyer hated that little man, Captain Bunny Killer! But the question was, did Kate deserve Sawyer kill someone for her?

Last night he thought they had crossed a bridge. She had even confessed what she had done to be wanted by an U.S. Marshall. He felt so sorry for her and he wouldn't think twice before killing Ben hadn't she tried to sneak out to her tent without even waking him. He couldn't deny that he was hurt when she wanted to be alone.

He had to admit he wasn't a man that fell in love, he always thought of women as means to an end, which was either pleasure or money. If Kate was using him to piss off Jack or just as a rebound thing, Sawyer should accept without complaining. But this island was changing him, making him a softie. He had even told Kate that he loved her.

Did he really love, Kate? He thought he had fallen in love once. Her name was Cassidy, he liked to call her Cass. He was supposed to use her for six hundred grands. But he loved spending time with her. She was sweet and innocent in her own way. She wasn't drop dead gorgeous, but she had something cute about her. Sawyer came dangerously close to give everything up and run away with her. But he didn't. He didn't because he didn't love her.

So the question still remained, when it would come the time for him to kill someone for Kate, would he do it? Was he really a murderer? Did he love her enough to kill for her? Was he really that bad?

He tried so hard to make people believe he was a bad person. Kate even asked him why he wants people to hate him so much. But Kate could see past his pretences. Or did she? After last night he started to doubt Kate's love for him. Sawyer constantly doubted it actually. She had never told him she indeed loved him. She told Danny Pickett she loved Sawyer just to stop Danny from killing him. And when Sawyer asked her about it, she didn't say anything.

So how could Sawyer be so sure Kate loved him? He was starting to believe she only liked him because he was bad. Somehow, because of all the shit she has been put through she wants to be in control of someone like him. She wants to be in control of a bad person, she wants to use someone that uses people. Who better than Sawyer?

----------------------

_Jimmy was a 7 year old boy, he had blond hair and bright green eyes. His best friend Joey was smaller and chubbier with brown curly hair. They did everything together, and were always getting themselves in trouble. Once for stealing the answers of Mrs. Lane's test, once for playing hookie, and many other felons too many to mention._

_Today they were in the mood to having some fun, Jimmy watched a bunch of girls of his class playing in the playground. Joey looked up at his partner waiting for his signal to attack, Jimmy smiled at him. They made their way toward to the girls._

_One of them, Mary Anne, was redhead and always had piggy tails. Jimmy loved messing with her, she was fun to watch when she got mad. Mary was climbing the slider when Jimmy got behind her and pulled down her skirt, the girl screamed._

"_I see London," Joey screamed pointing, "I see France, I see someone's underpants!" _

_Jimmy laughed evilly as children all over the playground started to point and laugh. Mary's cheeks turned bright red, she pulled her skirt up, but it didn't help to lessen the laughs, she started to cry embarrassed and ran to hide in the nearest ladies' restroom. One of Mary's friends Lucy came over and shoved Jimmy in her friend's defense._

_She was really small, had long straight hair, so black it shined in the sun. She wore glasses and a girly dress. Jimmy laughed even harder because the girl wasn't strong enough to knock him off his feet._

"_That's all you got, four eyes?" He asked still laughing_

"_Let's give her a wedgie?" Joey suggested excited_

_The girl ignored Joey's comment, she was still focused on the stupid bully in front of her, she wanted to make him stop laughing so badly. She gathered all her strength and shoved him one more time, the boy fell on his butt. The other kids, still watching the scene went wild laughing even harder than before._

"_You're bad, Jimmy! I'm gonna tell Mrs. Lane!"_

_Jimmy stuck out his tongue, frowning and mad at Lucy for embarrassing him in front of everybody. She crossed her arms on her chess and walked away._

"_Yeah, and you're a tattler!" He yelled at her retreating figure._

_Hours later, Jimmy sat in the back seat of the truck as his parents rode in the front. Jimmy had been set to the principle office, they had called his parents and he had been suspended for two days because of his constant misbehavior. Jimmy watched in silence as his parents fought over whose fault it was that Jimmy was such a bad boy as his father drove them home._

_The boy looked out the window, the trees passed by him in a fast pace as his parents kept on fighting, not an unusual episode. They were now trying to decide what to do with him since keeping Jimmy grounded wasn't really working anymore._

"_This is all your fault," his father accused, "I think all he needs is for me spank some sense into his thickhead!"_

"_We are not animals," his mother protested, "I'm not gonna let you lay a finger on his hair."_

"_If it wasn't for you, I would've showed him the back of my hand a long time ago." His mother didn't answer, "That's your problem, you're too softie! His birthday is coming up soon, I bet you're going to buy him the most expensive present he wants."_

"_If you take Sawyer's deal, we will have enough money to buy Jimmy all the presents in the world."_

"_You always find a way to bring this Sawyer up, I don't think it's a good idea giving this guy all our money…" he shook his head._

"_It's a great idea!" His mother insisted. _

----------------------

Sawyer should have figured that Locke was up to something. He shouldn't have trusted him, and yet he did. Now Sawyer was locked inside a room in a brig that was stuck in the middle of the jungle, with a man he didn't even know tied up to a chair with gag on his mouth while Locke sat idly guarding the door waiting for something to happen.

"Locke! Open this damn door! Open it up! I can hear you, you bald bastard!" Sawyer yelled, he knocked on the door and yelled some more to no avail. "Open this damn door! Son of a bitch!!" The man behind him kept on shouting through his gag, so Sawyer took it off. He held his finger to signal for him to be quiet then turned and pointed the gun at the door. "I'm pointing my gun at you John-boy. You got three seconds to open this door."

"You're not gonna shoot anyone, James." John replied

"One! Two!" Sawyer begun to count

"If there were any bullets in that gun, why would you hold a knife to my throat?"

"Ah! Son of a bitch!!" Sawyer cursed

"Guess I didn't raise no dummies," the man spoke for the first time.

"The hell's that mean?" Sawyer inquired

"It means that the bald headed bastard outside the door is my son."

"Come again?"

"My son. As in I'm his father. You do speak English?"

Sawyer mumbled something under his breath, "how did you get here, to the Island?"

"Island?" The man asked ironic, "ok, I'm driving down through Tallahassee when bam, somebody slams into the back of my car. I go right into the divider at seventy miles an hour, the next thing I know, the paramedics are strapping me to a gurney, stuffing me into the back of an ambulance and one of them actually smiles at me as he pops the IV in my arm. And then, nothing. Just, black. And the next thing I know I wake up in a dark room tied up, gag in my mouth, and when the door opens, I'm looking up at the same man I threw out a window, John Locke. My dead son!" The man finished his story and Sawyer thought for a while.

"And he's dead 'cause you threw him out a window?"

"No he survived that. But it paralyzed him, permanently. He's dead because the plane he was flying on crashed in the Pacific." The man explained

"Well I got bad news for ya pops, cause I was on that plane with your son. He sure as hell wasn't crippled. And we didn't crash in the Pacific, we crashed here on this Island."

"You sure it's an Island?" He asked intriguing Sawyer.

"Well what else is it?"

"Little hot for heaven isn't it?"

"Oh, ok, so we're dead?" Sawyer asked sarcastically by the crazy comment.

"They found your plane on the bottom of the ocean. One minute I'm in a car wreck and the next minute I'm in a pirate ship in the middle of the jungle. If this isn't hell friend, then where are we?" The man asked the question that Sawyer and pretty much all the castaways, except for John Locke, had been asking every since the crash.

"Why did you throw Locke out a window?" Sawyer tried to change the subject.

"He was becoming a nuisance. I conned him into giving me one of his kidneys. He never got over it." Sawyer was intrigued by his use of the verb con.

"Conned?" Sawyer asked

"Yes sir, conned…"

"What's your name?"

"Hmm?" The man asked confused

"Your name," Sawyer repeated irritated.

"A conman goes by many names friend. I've been Alan Seward, Anthony Cooper, Ted MacLaren, Tom Sawyer, Louis Jackson, and Paul..."

"Tom Sawyer!" Sawyer stressed the name

"I was young and Huck Finn was taken. And the ladies loved that one. Made me charming."

"Well how about that,"

"How about what?" The man asked.

"Sawyer's my name too."

Sawyer stared at man for a long time. This was the man whom he had searched for his whole damn life. And who would ever say that he would find him here on this mystery island. Sawyer felt lots of things, and all those feelings were showing up on his face.

"What's the matter with you?" The man finally asked

"You ever been to Jasper, Alabama?"

"Why?"

"Have you or haven't you?" Sawyer repeated annoyed.

"Yeah I've been to Jasper. Don't tell me I'm your daddy?" He asked sarcastically.

"No. You killed my daddy!" Sawyer accused

Sawyer reached for the letter on his pocket, the one he had written on his mother and father's funeral. Sawyer felt relieved when he gave the letter to the one it was addressed.

"Read it!" Sawyer demanded

"'_Dear Mr. Sawyer_,' what is this?" he begun to read, but stopped.

"Just read it!" Sawyer insisted.

"'_You don't know who I am, but I know who you are. And I know what you done. You had sex with my mother, and then you stole my dad's money all away, so he got angry and he killed my mother, and then he killed himself'_ blah blah blah blah." The man stopped reading and turned to Sawyer. "So what? Is this supposed to be you, you wrote this letter? Hey wait a second. Did you take my name because you were on some kind of revenge kick?"

"Keep reading!"

"Easy, easy, don't get all worked up. Look, I ran that con two dozen times. If your mother was one of the..."

"Mary. Her name was Mary!"

"Mary from Jasper, Alabama. Yeah, I remember her. She practically begged me to take her thirty-eight thousand dollars and to rescue her from her sorry little life."

"You finish the letter," Sawyer insisted almost crying.

"Look, I only took her money. It ain't my fault your dad overreacted. If he pulled the old murder suicide then I'm sure he's down here somewhere. Er, maybe you could take this up with him..."

"FINISH IT!!!" Sawyer shouted.

"Ok, ok," the man made as if he was going to keep reading the letter, but he ripped it into pieces.

Sawyer's anger reached its top when he saw the only letter he had ever written being torn to pieces by the man he hated the most. Sawyer attacked him, choking him with the chains he picked around the room.

"You wanna go to hell?" Sawyer asked as the man struggled to breathe, "you wanna go to hell!!" He repeated and held the chains tighter around the man's neck until he finally choked and stopped moving.

Sawyer let him go and what he had just done hit him full force. The door opened and John Locke entered the room.

"Thank you," was all Locke said.

----------------------

_Jimmy was sound asleep on his bed, the last few weeks had been crazy, her mother explained to him everything that had happened, she wanted him to understand. First they had moved to his grandparents' house, because his parents were getting a divorce. Two days ago, they moved back home because her mother got the house. Jimmy didn't care he was just glad he was home._

_Jimmy heard the sound of pounding on a door and then he felt his mother shaking him awake. _

"_Wake up! He's here!"__ Jimmy opened his eyes to look at his mother with sleepy eyes. "C'mon, got to get you up. He'll think you're still with your grandparents, okay? Get under the bed. Let's go. Okay." His mother held his head protectively, "listen to mommy, this is really important. Get under the bed, don't make a sound. Don't come out, no matter what happens. Don't come out, okay?"_

"_Okay," he answered, sleep still apparent on his voice._

"_I love you!" She hugged him_

"_I love you too, mommy," he mumble._

"_Let's go. Down you go," she helped him get under the door._

"_Open this door!" Jimmy recognized his father's shouting._

"_Stop it. Please stop it. Go away. Stop it!" His mother pleaded, there was a noise of a door being broken. "What the hell is wrong with you?" Jimmy tried to understand what was happening, but he couldn't see anything from his position. "I'm calling the police, get out of here. What are you doing? What the hell are you doing with a gun, get out of..."_

_Jimmy was startled by the loud sound of gunshot, he then heard what he could only assume was his mother's __body falling to the floor. Jimmy was fully awake now, he shook with fear as the only thing he could see from under the bed was his father's boots approaching. His father walked slowly toward him and stopped when he was close enough, he sat on the bed. Jimmy tried to hold his breath afraid his father would hear him. But soon there was another shot. _

_The boy closed his eyes, his little heart was beating fast and desperately, he had never felt so scared his entire life. For a good amount of time Jimmy stood under the bed, with his eyes shut silently praying for someone to come rescue him. But he knew no one would come so soon. He started to count aloud, one, two, three, four, when he reached five he opened his eyes._

_He could still see his father's boots, they were motionless. Jimmy crawled carefully not to touch his father. He got to his feet and refused to look at his bed, he went into the living room, he saw his mother body lying lifeless on the floor, he came closer, her eyes were open, he bent over to close them. Her skin was still hot but the blood on the floor next to her didn't fool him, she was dead, he knew it._

_He wanted to cry, he wanted to hold her, but then he heard something. He focused to find out what it was, the noise was heard again, and this time Jimmy knew it was coming from his bedroom. The little boy didn't think twice and ran out of the broken door. It was raining heavily outside, but Jimmy didn't dare to go back._

_He ran toward the big red barn, he didn't know where to go, he just wanted to get away, he didn't look back. His pajamas clung to his skin it was damp with water. His eyes adjusted quickly to dark. When Jimmy arrived at the barn it was locked. The boy was furious with frustration when he heard a horse neighing behind._

_Jimmy turned around to face a big_ _Georgian Grande, his black coat fading into the darkness, the boy recognized the stallion, because that was his own horse. His name was Pourquoi Pas, his father found him walking around the farm one day, they tried to train him, but the only person who could ever get near him without him getting mad was Jimmy._

_His father said the horse was no use so Jimmy asked if he could keep him, "why not?" He remembered his father saying, "as long as you don't try to ride him!" Jimmy was thrilled and named the stallion Pourquoi Pas, meaning of Why Not in French. The boy had picked up some words after years of his grandmother trying to teach him French._

_Pourquoi Pas __was his best friend, Jimmy would sneak in the middle of the night to visit him on the barn just because he missed him. _

"_What are you doing out here, Pourquoi Pas?" Jimmy asked and the horse just neighed swinging his head up and down._

_Jimmy heard another noise and was sure it came from the house. He looked around nervously, he needed to get out of there, and then he saw it. In a puddle on the floor he found an old rope halter. He picked it up as Pourquoi Pas neighed again, the horse came trotting towards him, stopping in front of him._

"_Why not?" Jimmy said picking the rope halter and putting it on Pourquoi Pas._

_The boy jumped and mounted the horse that didn't even mind him, Jimmy commended the horse to go, and Porquoi Pas galloped them to the nearest farm house. Jimmy knocked on their door, it took a while for someone to answer, all the lights were off. Pourquoi Pas waited with him until the door opened._

_An old man looked down at the dripping wet boy on his porch. "Who is there, honey?" Came a woman's voice from inside the house._

"_It's the Ford's boy," the old man answered, "how did you get here, boy?"_

"_I came on horseback," Jimmy pointed on the direction of Pourquoi Pas._

"_There's no horse there, son!" The man's voice told Jimmy what he was seeing with his own eyes._

_Pourquoi Pas __was gone and Jimmy had never seen him since then. _

----------------------

Sawyer spent his whole life believing that once he revenged his parents' death he would finally be freed of his constant anger. Soon after the man was dead on his hands he realized that things weren't that simple.

He first felt empty. Maybe because all his anger had died along with the man, but soon he started regret what he had done. Who was Sawyer to decide that the man deserved to die if the reason why he didn't want people calling him by his real name was because he felt like a Sawyer?! Because he had become a Sawyer! And if that was the case, shouldn't he have killed himself as well? Assuming he had become the man he was hunting, the man he had killed.

Sawyer stared at John, the tears on his eyes where the result of the repressed feelings he had hidden inside his heart for all these years. And in front of him stood this man whose father he had just killed, but he was looking back at him as if Sawyer had just made him a favor. Sawyer was disturbed by everything. It was like the word was spinning around him, but not in a good way.

He made it past John and out of the black rock, once back outside he knew that things had changed completely because even the air around him seemed different. He walked trying to get away, but his legs felt weak and he crumbled to the ground. And soon he didn't feel empty anymore, he felt full.

Full of regret and guilty, it felt like he was going to explode his head throbbed. All those feeling begun to make its way out of him somehow so he bent over and emptied his stomach.

"You can go back now," John told him

"Why did you do this?" He asked stunned by how the man was acting as if nothing had happened.

"He ruined my life. And he ruined yours. And he had it coming," Locke explained.

Of course John Locke didn't feel a hint of guilt, it wasn't him that chocked the life out of another man. He wasn't a murder, he had said so himself. But apparently Sawyer was, and had been for three times now. He had taken three lives now!

"Juliet is a mole," John said.

"What?" Sawyer asked confused at the sudden change of subject.

"She's working for Ben. He sent her back to find out which of our women were pregnant. Three days from now, there's gonna be a raid on the beach and they're gonna take them. They say they don't want anyone to get hurt."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"So you can warn the camp."

"You warn the camp," Sawyer repeated.

"I'm not going back."

"You're going back undercover?"

"No I was never undercover, James. I'm on my own journey now!"

"Even if Juliet is a mole," Sawyer begun back at his normal self, "they ain't gonna believe me, I been saying that since she showed up..." Locke gave him a tape recorder.

"They'll believe you now," he said and begun to leave.

"Hey. Is it true?"

"Is what true?"

"That he threw you out a window? That you were a cripple?"

"Not anymore!" He said then left.

Sawyer held the recorder tight in his hand, and headed back to the beach camp. His bare feet weren't bothering him anymore. Because all he could think about was that man, and his indifferent tone when Sawyer told him he had killed his parents. Sawyer still could hear the sound of his letter being ripped.

But the thing that bothered him the most was the sound of the man gasping for air, Sawyer could still feel him struggling in his arms, struggling to breath. He thought about what he had asked himself earlier.

When it would come the time for him to kill someone for Kate, would he do it? Was he really a murderer? Did he love her enough to kill for her? Was he really that bad? And the answer was in the tip of his tongue. Yes, he was really that bad. The next time he was face to face with one of the Others he wouldn't hesitate to kill, because he was really that bad.

And John Locke here was saying Juliet was mole, maybe she was the next person to die on his hands, Sawyer thought looking at the tape recorder in his hand. He pressed the play bottom and Juliet's voice filled the silence of the jungle.

"_Ben, its 06:00 a.m. on Saturday morning. Kwon is pregnant, the fetus is healthy and was conceived on-Island with her husband, he was sterile before they got here. I'm still working on getting samples from the other women, I should have Austen's soon. I'll report back when I know more_."

"Well, well, well, Juliet…" Sawyer said aloud, "you better hope your Dr. Romeo is with you next time we meet." He stopped and frowned, "Because I swear to God, if Jack doesn't stop me I'll kill you!"

----------------------

_Jimmy was playing backgammon with his therapist, his uncle thought that it was a good idea, that the woman was nice and he could talk to her about anything. This was the second time he had visited her, and so far they had played, talked and draw some pictures. Jimmy didn't really understand the importance of this. He could do it anyplace else. But his uncle was in charge now, and Jimmy respected him._

"_Jimmy, I want to talk to you about the picture you painted on our last session." She said taking the picture out of a folder and putting it on the table._

_On the white sheet there was two stick figures draw with black crayon, one was big and the other was little. Jimmy looked at the picture and then at his therapist._

"_Who are those in the picture?" She asked_

"_This is me," Jimmy pointed at the smaller figure, "and this is Sawyer."_

"_Who is Sawyer, Jimmy? Your daddy?"_

"_No, Sawyer is the man who had sex with my mom and stole my dad's money. Because of him my dad killed my mother and then killed himself." Jimmy told her matter-of-factly. The woman took a long breathe and wrote something down her notebook._

"_Do you even know what having sex mean, Jimmy?"_

"_It's what a mother and a father do in the bedroom when they take their clothes off," he told her, "and you are not supposed to do it with another person!" There was a hint of resentment on the young man's voice._

"_Do you blame your mother for cheating on your father?" She asked and Jimmy shook his head, "do blame your father for killing your mother and then himself." Again the boy shook his head._

"_No, it's all Sawyers fault!" _

"_Is that why you drew a picture of him?" The boy nodded. "Do you hate him?" He nodded again, "why are you in this picture, Jimmy?" _

"_Because I'm a bad boy, because my parents didn't love each other because I was a bad boy. It's my fault they left me, because I'm bad just like Sawyer!" Jimmy told her frowning overwhelmed with hate. _

----------------------

Things weren't going exactly according to plan, Sawyer thought as he walked up the hill. He arrived at the beach ready to expose Juliet when everything turned upside down again. The little blue eyed minx named Juliet must had foreseen that Locke would put his hands on the tape so she went to Jack and confessed that she was there undercover for the others before the tape leaked.

The stupid Jackass fell for her sweet fairy tale story that she was innocent and was being forced to do so. Now Jack was still protecting that woman and even had a crazy plan ready for when the others attacked. Jack had always had to be a wiseass, hadn't he? Of course, his little perfect plan had to be shut down by the earlier arrival of the Others.

And now Sawyer was getting a kick out of seeing Jack's frustrated look as they made their way up to the Radio Tower. Jack was frustrated because:

One, there was this Naomi chick, the one that Jin and Hurley were hiding in a tent. She had parachuted into the island and claimed that there was a rescue boat a few of miles offshore waiting for Naomi to make a call so they could come rescue everyone and save the day. The problem was that her sophisticated satellite phone wasn't sending out any signals because there was this supposedly flooded underwater station that was blocking any signals out of the island. So Jack was pissed that he had to send Charlie and Desmond on a suicide mission to try and deactivate it.

Tow, Jack got mad because with the earlier arrival of the others he didn't have time to set up the dynamite properly and blow the camp from a distance. So he was forced to leave Sayid, Jin and Bernard behind to blow the dynamite using only guns.

Three, Jack was also a little frustrated because Sayid didn't let him stay behind. Sayid told Jack that he needed to lead the people to the Radio Tower to eliminate Rousseau's distress signal that had been playing for sixteen years. Because that was Jack's job, he was their leader, and that's how Sawyer ended up walking up to the Radio Tower.

Boy, things happened fast on the island when you were busy murdering the man whom you had hated for most of your life. But the thing that was really worrying not only Jack, but everyone in the group, including Sawyer was that there had been only two explosions when there was supposed to be three!

The group finally decided to take a break when they reached a stream, Sawyer was colleting some water when Kate stopped in front of him.

"Something's wrong!" She said

"Lots of things are wrong, Kate."

"Jin, Bernard and Sayid, they should have caught up to us by now. I wanna go back to make sure they're all right."

"Course you do," he said with an ironic tone

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means, Kate, there's always someone to go back for."

"What's the matter with you?" She asked finally noticing that he had been acting really weird since he had got that tape recorder, which Sawyer hadn't told her the whole story yet of why it had took him a whole day to get a simple tape.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" She asked sarcastically

"I'm fine."

"Why don't you just tell me what happened?" Sawyer didn't answer so she splashed him with water playfully.

"What you do that for?" He asked annoyed.

"To wake you up! Ever since you got that tape from Locke it's like you've been sleepwalking. You don't care about our friends, fine, but it's like you don't care about anything anymore. And since when did you start calling me Kate?" They were silent, there was something Kate had been meaning to talk to him. "You know. They sent Juliet to check out Sun, but she was there to check and see if I'm pregnant too."

"Well let's hope you're not!" He said coldly leaving her behind, he didn't care if he hurt her, she didn't deserve him.

Sawyer passes by Jack and gave him a brief, but chilly look. There were so many things that he'd like to tell him. Jack kept protecting Juliet even after discovering that she was working undercover for the Others. But what pained Sawyer the most was that Kate didn't care! If Jack thought Juliet was safe, then Kate believed him.

Has Kate forgotten what the Others had done to her? He didn't think so, because a couple of nights ago he was holding a distressed Kate into his arms. Has Kate perhaps forgotten that Juliet had pointed a gun at her and would not hesitate before shooting? Then why? Why after Sawyer has proved to her that Juliet couldn't be trusted did Kate still prefer to go along with Jack's perfect plan?

Maybe Sawyer was just fooling himself and Kate didn't really love him. Maybe she was just sleeping with because inside her little messed up mind she wants Jack to come riding in a white horse dressed up in a shiny armor and save her from her relationship with Sawyer. Because that's what Sawyer was. He was just bad news!

After walking for a good time trying to decide if he was such a bad person that Kate didn't deserve him; or if Kate was just trying to use him and therefore he didn't deserve her. Sawyer realized that the answer was simple. They shouldn't be together either way. And he didn't want to be anywhere near her. He was going to do something better with his time.

"I'm going back," Sawyer announced

"What?" Jack asked stopping to face him.

"I'm going back to the beach," Sawyer explained.

"No way! We keep moving!" Jack said

"I ain't asking permission," Sawyer said and now Juliet and Kate had also stopped. "Look you got a job to do here. I ain't gonna stand in your way of doing it. And you sure as hell don't need me."

"What do you think you're gonna get done? Alone and unarmed!"

"He won't be alone, I'll go with him," Kate entered the conversation.

"No!" Sawyer said sternly.

"Twenty minutes ago you weren't even interested in going, and now all of a sudden you're telling Jack I'm..."

"I didn't wanna go with you."

"Sawyer, it's a suicide mission without guns." Jack begun

"I know where there are some guns." Juliet interrupted, "there's a hidden cache a couple of miles from here. I can take us back to the beach on a route past it."

"Juliet, you don't have to do that." Jack told her

"Yeah, Jack, I kinda do!"

"Let's do this," Sawyer said leaving, but still paying attention to the conversation.

"Don't do anything stupid!" Jack told her

"I won't if you won't," Juliet said and kissed him. Kate watched them, Sawyer looked behind for a brief moment and saw the look on Kate's face. "Don't wait up." Juliet told Jack and then finally reached Sawyer.

Sawyer walked in silence thinking about the hurt look on Kate's face. Was she hurt because he said he didn't want her to go with him? Or was she hurt because Doc and Doc_ 'were sitting on a tree'_? He didn't know, and he didn't want to care.

Juliet was walking beside him now, he had the perfect chance to kill her and yet he didn't want to. No, he didn't, he wanted to find more about her. When he was hating Juliet from afar she was in his eyes a manipulative shrew. But now that he was near her she had this calming aura that seemed to soothe him. He wanted to know more about her.

"So, when you pulled us out of those polar bear cages and put us on the chain gang, what the hell you have us breaking all those rocks for anyway?" He asked her

"We were building a runway."

"Runway, for what?"

She looked at his face with a hard to read expression and said, "the aliens!" She smirked at his dumb expression, "I don't know what for, do you think they told me everything?"

"Yeah yeah, whatever you say," he didn't want to admit that he found her amusingly ease to talk to, "so you screwing Jack yet?"

"No. Are you?" Sawyer couldn't help, but chuckle, he was warming up to her already.

"How far away are these guns?"

"There aren't any guns," she told him and he grabbed her arm starting to get annoyed again.

"What?"

"I lied," she said simply.

"You lied?"

"It was the only way he'd let us go back," she explained.

"So why are you going back?" He asked

"Karma," she answered, "why are you going back, James?"

'_Karma,_' he wanted to reply, but then they heard Hurley shouting. "Hey! Hey guys, wait up!"

"What the hell do you want?" Sawyer asked still annoyed.

"I'm coming with you guys."

"Uh uh, no way. Not a chance," Sawyer told him.

"Come on, I can help," Hurley begun, "they're my friends too, man. Look, Charlie wouldn't let me go with him, Jack's too busy leading to even talk to me. I just wanna help, please?

"For God's sake, Hugo, look at you." Sawyer said referring to his overweight size, he didn't want to hurt Hurley's feeling, but he also didn't want him to get hurt! "You're just gonna get in the way. You wanna get us killed?" Sawyer turned to Juliet, "come on!"

Juliet followed Sawyer, but she looked apologetically at Hurley. She liked Hurley, he was the first one to talk to her when she arrived at their camp. But she knew that if Hurley really wanted to help, he would find a way.

----------------------

_He remembered when it all begun. His uncle __had gotten sick, brain tumor, and was about to lose the farm. So James, now 19 years old, got involved with some drug dealers. James got money to help his uncle and in the process he got himself a six thousand dollar debt to pay off. That had not been the right thing to do, but he was in trouble and that's when he met her._

_He was in bar. Her name was Lisa, she made the first move, told him she just wanted something stupid to forget her hell of a marriage. They got to talking over booze, she told him she had got married too soon with a guy twice her age, just because he had some money and she wanted to live a luxurious life._

_She was hot and good looking, he was young and reckless, he didn't care, soon they were going at it in a cheap motel room. She liked him, of course she did. He had no problems satisfying a woman. She confessed that she wanted this forever, she hated that she had to go back and face that jerk of a husband._

"_Why don't you run away with me?" He had suggested, "It will be easy, you tell your husband I'm an investor, and that I'll triple his money. When he gives us his money we'll run away together!"_

_She was thrilled by the idea, and her dumb husband was thrilled by the prospect of tripling his money. What neither of them knew was that the guy, who showed Lisa a good time and promised her husband lots of money, was going to get the money and never come back._

"_It's all there, six grands!" James told one of the drug dealers who started to count the money._

"_It was a pleasure doing business with you James," he said still counting._

"_James is dead… Call me Sawyer!" Sawyer left him to count, and with the rest of the money he got from his first con he used to leave Alabama for good. _

----------------------

As Sawyer and Juliet approach the beach they heard Tom argue with another Other.

"It was an order, Tom, we had to follow it."

"Ben doesn't know what the hell he's talking about, he's lost it! I mean look at what they did to us. Instead of putting three bullets in the damned sand, we should have killed them for real."

Sawyer watched a little away from the scene, they could see that Sayid, Jin and Bernard were tied up with a third Other pointing a gun at them. Juliet was by his side, she was so close he could smell her sent, she smelled good with a hint of ocean to it. It was hard for him to focus when she was so close. He decided to talk.

"All they got left is three guys and four guns," Sawyer said.

"And all we've got, James, are two people and no guns!" She pointed out.

"So we'll wait till night."

"That isn't going to change the fact that we're unarmed, if you wanna kill yourself, fine, but before you go I can try..."

"Shh! You hear that?"

There was a humming sound that sounded much like a car, a car in the middle of the jungle? Sawyer and Juliet turned to see as a Dharma van drove right by them. Hurley was in the front seat driving it through a tent and straight towards Ryan and Tom. Tom dove out of the way while Ryan shot at Hurley.

Ryan missed, of course, and Hurley rode past him, Hurley broke the van and started to get out. Sawyer stopped him though, pushing the car door shut. Hurley exclaimed and Sawyer told him, "stay in the bus, Hugo!" Sawyer looked around and found Ryan's gun lying on the ground, he grabbed it and jumped out to stop in front of the Other who was holding his friends at gun point.

Sayid took advantage of the moment and kicked the man, knocking him down before he could fire at Sawyer. Sayid then wrapped his legs round his neck, breaking it. The man fell dead on the floor. Jin, Bernard and Sawyer looked stunned at Sayid who nodded at Sawyer for him to go on.

Tom crawled to an unattended gun on the ground, but to his surprise, Juliet grabbed it first and stepped on his hand, causing him to cry out with pain.

"Stay right there, Tom." She told him, pointing the gun at him.

"Ok, I give up!" Tom told Sawyer

Sawyer just looked at him for a moment. He still had his gun pointed at Tom. He thought about the promise he made to Kate. He thought about how easy it would be to kill him. But he decided that Kate wasn't worth this. Sawyer finally pulled the trigger, shooting Tom in the chest, he surprised Juliet.

"That's for taking the kid off the raft!" Sawyer told Tom as the life left his body. No, he hadn't killed him for Kate. He did it because the stupid bastard was a kidnapper!

"Dude it was over, he surrendered," Hurley told him surprised.

"I didn't believe him!" Sawyer explained

After the moment was gone, they untied Sayid, Jin and Bernard. Hurley was so excited that he had saved them all, so he used the Other's walkie-talkie to tell Jack the good news. Apparently, Ben had tricked Jack into believing that Tom had shoot Sayid, Jin and Bernard to death, so Jack was thrilled when told otherwise.

Sawyer didn't feel bad about shooting Tom, he was intrigued by the surprise look on Juliet's face when he did. This woman was a puzzle to him, she was stern and strong, he had seen her shooting a man to death without hesitating. Why was she so surprised when he did the same? Perhaps she thought he wasn't capable of cold blood murder.

"Hey, Sayid," Sawyer called to him, Sayid noticed Sawyer focus on Juliet who was a little distant talking to Hurley. "You trust her already?"

Sayid looked at her for a moment, Juliet was laughing, Hurley was hugging her, pulling her off her feet with his embrace. She looked at their direction, noticing that both men had their eyes on her. She tried to pretend she didn't noticed and they pretended not to be looking.

"I don't know," Sayid said looking at Sawyer, "she is either better at manipulating people than Ben is, or we are such bad people we can't even recognize a good person when she is right in front of us."

Sawyer nodded, he felt the need to be alone with his thoughts. He set on the floor looking at the ocean, watching the waves go by. He notices when she got near him, sitting beside him, he wanted to talk, to say something, but nothing came out.

"Why did you kill, Tom?" She asked him

He turned to face her, he was frowning his face as usual. "Remember the day Claire got sick?" Juliet nodded in agreement, "that day you told me you knew about the guy I had shot in cold blood the night before I got on the plane that crashed on this island. Well, that's the kind of guy I am!" He looked back at the ocean.

She did the same, "you know, James. That same day I told your camp that Claire was having late reaction to the medication I had designed and had prescribed to her when we had kidnapped her back when she was pregnant. Well, I lied!" Sawyer looked at her suddenly interested to hear the end of the story. "I haven't designed any medication, Ethan implanted her with a virus which Ben only activated when he left me behind. I put up a show so that some of your people would begin to trust me!"

"Why are you telling me this?"

"For you to understand that I am just as good at coning people as you are."

"I don't believe you, I think you're telling me this because you feel guilty."

"Well, that's what you think." She told him with a flash of a smile that was hard to read. "And I think…" She added as an extra thought, "That you say you are the kind of person who kills at cold blood so that people will hate you because that's how you feel inside. You're dying with guilty just as I am!" She confessed, they stared at each other trying to make the truth out of the lies. She got up, cleaning the sand off her backside. He stared up at her. "Let's make a pact?" She suggested

"Shoot…"

"Are you a bad person, James?" He looked at her confuse, "The day you come to me and answer me that question, I'll tell you what side I'm actually on." She smiled again, "see you later, James!" She said and walk back at the camp.

"See you later, Blondie!" He said to no one at all with a curious smile on his face.

----------------------

**Author's**** Note:** The horse in which Sawyer rode to the neighbors' house is the same horse that helped Kate escape. I just thought it was a nice touch to throw in, very creepy and something you would probably see in Lost.

I got the idea for this when I read someone's theory that Vincent was the same retriever that appeared to John's foster mother when his sister died. Then I watched the episode 2.09 - What Kate Did, and it looked like Sawyer knew Kate's horse, which explains his amusement when he asks her, "do you know this horse, Freckles?" So I figured, John told that story to Kate and Sawyer because those two had an especial relationship with a certain horse, just like John and Walt have an especial relationship with a certain dog. Plus Vincent is light and Kate's horse is dark, and this is a lost fanfiction, let's get Lost!!! =]

Still on the horse black subject, I actually met a black horse once named Pourquoi Pas, it was my friend's, he was a Thoroughbred, that's where I got the inspiration for the name.

I think that when little Sawyer begun to count to five, when he was under the bed and his father had just killed himself was a nice Lost reference.

Oh, and I guess that killing someone in each chapter has become kind of a routine. Jack's chapter is coming up next, maybe I don't kill anyone then. Who knows? _***me rubs her hands together looking around wicked evilly!***_


	5. You’re Brave

**You're Brave**  
[Chapter 04 – Part 05 of 12]

**Author's Note:** As always I'm not a native English speaker and flashbacks are in italics.

I'm not a real fan of Jack's, I think his character is way too confusing and condescending, but he is an important part of my favorite love rectangle, so he needed to have his chapter. This chapter is Jate and Jacket from beginning to end, just because Jack is that confusing.

**Chapter Summary:** Letting go has never been easy for Jack, especially when you are constantly left in the dark. There are two women on Jack's life that he knows nothing about, and his curiosity has been getting to him now that there are so many things to fix and all his plans are falling apart.

----------------------

While Jack lead the group up to the radio tower he thought about everything that had happened to him over the last few weeks. He didn't blame his people for giving Juliet a hard time, he didn't blame them of questioning his reasons either. But the truth was, sometimes he still had doubts about Juliet.

He didn't know who she was, she had lived with the Others for three years, there was nothing sensible about believing her. But she had something about her, something he didn't quite know what it was, but something that made him believe in her. He wanted her to be on his side, he didn't want her to mess everything up. He didn't want to lose her.

Letting her go with Sawyer was difficult for Jack. Because inside he feared that it was just a trap, he was afraid that Juliet would take the opportunity to join back with the Others. That she was still an Other, that her convincing speech about her sister was just part of her act. He wanted to be by her side all the time, to avoid Juliet from showing her true colors, because he wanted her. He needed her!

He couldn't afford to lose her too, because she was the only thing that kept him going these days. He liked the way she looked at him, he knew that she liked him, and Jack needed to feel like someone cared about him. Because after Kate chose Sawyer, Jack needed someone to chose him!

But Kate wasn't happily in love with Sawyer, Jack could tell. It seemed they were having trouble. Sawyer was starting to boss Kate around, and she wasn't a woman who liked to follow orders. Jack still remembered the look of hurt on Kate's face when Sawyer told her he didn't want her to come with him.

Jack would give anything to hold her in his arms, tell her she could do much better than Sawyer, tell her she needed someone who treated her with respect. But Jack knew it wasn't his place to tell her that. Because the truth of the matter was that Kate loved Sawyer, not Jack.

She still looked hurt long after he left, she had stopped to catch a break. Jack hated the apparent pain in her hazel eyes, the look she tried to disguise as tiredness. He approached her.

"You ok?" He asked

"Yeah, I just, had a rock in my shoe." She answered taking her shoe off.

Jack watched for a minute, it would be so easy to tell her, but he knew he couldn't, "he didn't mean it, you know."

"What?"

"Sawyer. When he said that he didn't want you to go with him, he didn't mean it."

"He didn't mean it, why'd he say it?" She asked annoyed, anyone could recognize the resentment of her voice.

"I'm trying to protect you. That's why I asked you not to come back for me!" He confessed, telling her that Sawyer was doing just the same thing. And all of a sudden he couldn't bear to look at her anymore, he stared to leave.

"Hey. Why are you sticking up for Sawyer? He'd never do it for you."

"Because I love you…" The words escaped his mouth and there was no way he could ever take them back.

Jack walked on, leaving her behind, probably stunned at his confession. He hoped that she would think he loved like a friend. He didn't want her pity!

----------------------

_The first time he met her they were both frightened by the crash. He didn't remember her from the flight, but the despair __look on her eyes was a dead giveaway that she had been on the plane when it crashed. He imagined that the crash must have been horrible, he imagined because he didn't remember it, he had woken in the middle of the jungle._

_But he imagined it would have felt like a nightmare, thinking it wouldn't take much time before death arrived. But a miracle happened that day, because most of them survived. How was that even possible? Jack asked himself._

_She looked kind of lost, rubbing her wrist as she walked by him._

"_Excuse me," he called out to her. "Did you ever use a needle?"_

"_What?" She asked dazed_

"_Did you ever … patch a pair of jeans?"_

"_I, uhm, I made the drapes in my apartment," she answered, he could tell she was still lost in her own thoughts._

"_That's fantastic. Listen, do you have a second? I could use a little help here." She walked over to him and he noticed for the first time how beautiful she was. _

"_And with what?"_

"_With this," Jack said__ showing her his bare back, she looked disgusted by the painful wound she found there. "Look, I'd do it myself, I'm a doctor, but I just can't reach it."_

"_You want me to sew that up?" She asked terrified_

"_It's just like the drapes, same thing." _

"_No, with the drapes I used a sewing machine!" She didn't want to do it, she didn't have the guts._

"_No, you can do this. I'm telling you. If you wouldn't mind." He looked at her with pleading eyes, he could tell by her expression she would do anything to help him._

"_Of course I will."_

"_Thank you." He gave her a little liquor bottle the stewardess had given him earlier, she looked at him confused. "It's for your hands." He explained, "save me some for the, for the wound." _

_She nodded picking up a sewing kit that Jack had found looking through the luggage. "Any color preference?" She joked and he laughed_

"_No. Standard black." _

_She begun to stitch him, it was painful, but he managed, "I might throw up on you." She warned._

"_You're doing fine," he said shaking his head._

"_You don't seem afraid at all. I don't understand that."_

"_Well, fear's sort of an odd thing." He told her, "when I was in residency, my first solo procedure was a spinal surgery on a 16 year old kid, a girl. And at the end, after 13 hours, I was closing her up and I, I accidentally ripped her dural sac. Shredded the base of the spine where all the nerves come together, membrane as thin as tissue." Kate didn't understand half of what he was telling, but his voice helped to calm her nerves. "And so it ripped open. And the nerves just spilled out of her like angel hair pasta, spinal fluid flowing out of her and I … And the terror was just so … crazy. So real. And I knew I had to deal with it."_

_He began to cry, Kate wanted to know if it was because his wound hurt or because he was reliving the story he was telling her. "So I just made a choice. I'd let the fear in, let it take over, let it do its thing, but only for five seconds, that's all I was going to give it. So I started to count: One, two, three, four, five. Then it was gone. I went back to work, sewed her up and she was fine." Kate smiled. _

"_If that had been me, I think I would have run for the door." She confessed, because that was her answer for everything. She ran! _

"_No, I don't think that's true. You're not running now."_

_Kate thought about what he said as she finished stitching him up. It was true she wasn't running anymore. Maybe because right now there was no reason to; or maybe because the man in front of her made her stay put. She couldn't tell which, but she knew she didn't feel like running. She was safe, he made her feel safe! _

"_You're brave!" She told him, after she fished her job on his wound._

"_Not really!" He told her with a charming smile_

"_Next time I'm afraid, I'll be sure to count to five." She got to her feet and he looked up to see those beautiful eyes of hers._

"_You do that!"_

_He watched her go from his place on the floor, even the way she walked was mesmerizing, he knew that she had stolen his heart, and he didn't even know her name. _

----------------------

It all happened too fast, one minute they were heading up to the tower station, the next Jack was face to face Ben, who told him Naomi was one of the bad guys and that her people was coming to the island to kill everyone there. Then Ben gave Tom the order to shoot Sayid, Bernard and Jin, to shoot them dead. And the son of a bitch obeyed. Jack heard three gunshots; his friends were killed for nothing, in a split second.

Jack was filled with anger, he took it all out on Ben, beating him senseless until Jack's knuckles were bloody. The next revelation followed quickly as Rousseau approached Alex and Ben told them they were mother and daughter. Hurley's call of hope came soon enough telling Jack that Sayid, Bernard and Jin were fine and their death had been just hoax.

He was relieved for a while, but Jack had a feeling that something bad was coming. When Aaron had a meltdown Jack knew it could only be a bad omen, the baby hardly cried.

"Sshh. Hey Aaron, it's ok, sweetie!" Claire said rocking him

"What's the matter?" Naomi asked

"I dunno, I think he's just a bit scared."

"Hard to blame him," Naomi answered and then her phone begun to beep, she looked at it and the light that once was red was now green.

"What is it?" Claire asked

"What's your boyfriend's name? The rock star who swam down to the station?"

"Charlie, why?"

"Charlie just got us rescued," she said and ran up to meet Jack, "Jack!! Jack, he did it!! Your friend bloody well did it!"

"What?" He asked

"The green light, it's on. The jamming's stopped."

"Use it then," he suggested.

"All right," she said and started to dial.

"Four, four, two…" a male voice said over the phone, and then a french woman's voice replaced it. "Si qui que ce soit puisse entendre ceci, je vais essayer d'aller jusqu'au Rocher Noir."

"What's this?" Naomi asked confused

"It's Rousseau's message, it's still blocking the signal."

"It doesn't matter. We're here," Rousseau said.

Jack was relieve to see the radio tower, at least things was going according to plan, even though they had reached troubled water, the storm seemed to have passed. They walked inside and found machine that was playing the French message on loop near a speaker.

"I recorded this sixteen years ago." Rousseau told Alex, "three days before you were born. I guess we don't need it anymore." She turned off the recording and removed the tape.

"All right, do it." Jack told Naomi, she held the phone.

"I can't get a signal in here." She said and they exited the radio tower, everyone had their eyes on them, including Ben that was tied up to a three. "I'm getting something!"

"It's gonna work! It's happening, we're gonna get off of this Island!" Kate came over to Jack.

"We'll celebrate when we're home." He told her

"Jack!" Ben called out to him desperately. "I know you think you're saving your people. But you need to stop this. It's a mistake." Ben tried one last time to convince Jack this was a bad idea.

"The mistake was listening to you." Jack told him annoyed.

"This'll be your last chance, Jack." Ben was close to begging. "I'm telling you, making that call is the beginning of the end."

"I've got it, I've got a signal!!!" Naomi cheered

"Jack please, you don't know what you're doing!!" Ben warned

"I know exactly what I'm doing." Jack shouted pissed

Jack watched astonished as Naomi worked on the phone, she started to shake and blood came out of her mouth. She fell to the floor, face on the ground, on her back there was a knife and she let go of the phone. Jack saw John, standing there, he had thrown the knife, Jack knew it! A rush of feelings took over him.

"JOHN!!!" Jack shouted in shock as John pulled out a gun and pointed at him.

"Step back, Jack." He ordered

"What did you do?" Jack asked

"What I had to. Now step back." Jack didn't move, the phone had made the call, but someone needed to pick it up and answer. "Stay away from the phone." Jack didn't listen to John and dove for the phone. Locke shots trying to destroy it, but Jack got a hold of it first.

"What are you doing, John?" Jack asked as John pointed the gun at him again

"I don't wanna shoot you." John answered

"Do it, John!" Ben begged from the three. "Shoot him! Do what you need to do..." Rousseau knocked him unconscious with an elbow strike to the face.

"Please," John begged as the phone continued to beep just waiting to be picked up. "Put the phone down."

"No. You're done keeping me on this Island."

"I will kill you if I have to." John warned cocking the barrel.

"Then do it, John." Jack dared him.

"Jack," he heard Kate calling his name, but he still wouldn't fall into John's pleas.

"Jack," John begun as he lowered the gun, "you're not supposed to do this." Jack didn't believe him and answered the phone anyway.

"Minkowski. Hello?" Came the man's voice on the phone, Jack put it to his ear.

"Who is this?" Jack asked

"Who is this?" The voice on the phone countered.

"My name is Jack Shephard. Are you, are you on the boat, the freighter?"

"How'd you get this channel?"

"Naomi," Jack explained as he watched John leaving. "Naomi told us about your search team. About the boat."

"Naomi. You found her? Where is she? Who are you?"

"I'm one of the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815. Can you get a fix on our location?"

"Hell yeah we can. Sit tight. We'll be right there."

The shrieks of happiness brought piece to Jack's heart. He had done it, he had promised these people he would get them off the island and he was going to do it. He looked at Kate and she was happy. But there was someone else he wished was there. He wanted to see the look on her face when he told Juliet he was taking her off the island.

----------------------

_Jack sat on the floor of the aquarium, it was interesting they kept him captive there, away from Kate and Sawyer. He felt like a fish locked up on a big fish tank, Jack promised that he would never get a fish tank on his house if he ever got out of this island. He hated the fact that he was confined, all day long he was left with his thoughts._

_And his thoughts betrayed him. He didn't want to listen to them anymore. He kept thinking of Kate, he asked her if the Others had hurt her. She never answered him, and that was driving him crazy. If they touched her he was going to make them pay. He thought about Kate asking him to help Ben, because they were going to kill Sawyer if he didn't._

_Jack didn't want Sawyer to die. Like Sawyer once said before they left for the journey that had them captivated, Sawyer was the closest thing he had to a friend! But he didn't want Kate to care so much. She should care about Jack! His thoughts travelled to another woman, an Other woman! Jack felt like he was betraying his people. _

_Juliet, the kind lady who brought him food!_

_She had come earlier, showed him a video telling him that Ben was a liar, asking him to kill Ben at surgery that she would protect him. What was she doing to him? Why was she playing with his mind? She was a mystery to him and he couldn't stop thinking about her. She was an enigma and the more he thought about her the furthest he got to understand her._

_Jack wanted to know why this woman was so damn calm, so hurtfully cold. She intrigued him, with her tall slander figure, blonde cascading hair, __steel blue eyes as bright as snow. He couldn't read her, and he craved to know what she was thinking. She once sat on the table across the glass. He was watching her carefully as she went through his file. She was reading his life, with a serious poker face, he had felt like a student waiting for the teacher to read his test. _

_She knew everything about him, he wished he could read her file too! He wanted to know what made her tickle, because it didn't fit her. Ben, yes, it fit him, and he was past believing anything he said, but this woman, she was different. She looked like a brave beaten up warrioress, that still stood proud even after all the things she has witnessed. Yet her face refused to show any kind of emotion. _

_He remembered when he held her in his arms, after he attacked when he wanted to break free. He remembered how she trembled as he held a sharp piece of broken china to her throat. And even though she was at his complete mercy she kept her cool. In her voice there was a hint of nervousness, and as he promised to kill her he felt her flinch. But later she knocked him unconscious with just one blow._

_Why only when he held her so close, when he became a threat to her, did she let her mask down? And why did he care so much about her? Why did she intrigue him? _

"I'm fertility doctor,"_ her voice came to his mind, _"I'm no used to death!"

_That day he had looked into her eyes and he had seen something human, perhaps because the woman that had just died was one of Juliet's people. But even though he tried to dismiss it as nothing more than that, he couldn't deny that he thought Juliet was disappointed at herself for failing. Did that make her a good person? _

_Jack knew that she was an Other, that they were bad people. But she didn't look like a bad person, no, when she talked, that sweet composed voice had his complete attention. _

_Why couldn't Jack read her? He tried his best, he tried to guess. He thought she was a manipulative shrew who was helping Ben to get information from him. But when Ben left her to die, Jack knew Juliet meant nothing to Ben. And when she asked Jack to kill Ben, Jack knew for sure she wasn't on Ben's side. _

_But it didn't seem like to him that she was on Jack's side either. She said she would protect him if Jack killed Ben at surgery, but he didn't believe her. Whose side was she on? He'd given everything to have her broken down and find out! _

----------------------

Jack should have known things weren't going to be so easy, they never were! He knew John Locke would be trouble since he decided that it was their destiny, his and Jack's, to open the hatch. But Jack would never have guessed that Locke would be blowing up submarines and stabbing people on the back because the island somehow _'told him to'_.

The man was crazy, and Jack was so infuriated by his action that God forbid Jack didn't know what he would do if he ever got the chance to actually kill John Locke. It was Locke's madness that made Jack follow Danielle Rousseau through the jungle, juts because Locke's plan of killing Naomi didn't work!

The woman didn't die and she probably woke up scared to death and just wondered off into the jungle. To hide from them, and Jack didn't blame her. They were so consumed by happiness that they only realized she was gone when it was too late. But they needed to find her, because the phone was getting some interference, which didn't help the people on the boat to track their location, and Naomi was the only one who could fix it.

Her people were getting suspicious and wanted to talk to her. Jack was able to stall them, saying that Naomi went to pick some firewood. This gave them time to trek her down. The problem was Kate found a blood trail that lead west and Rousseau found a trail that lead into another direction.

Maybe one was dummy, Kate had said, but seriously, the woman was bleeding to death, and Jack couldn't risk that Kate went after Naomi alone. Ben's people were probably just waiting for a chance to get their hands on one of them.

So he took Ben by the rope as if he was a dog; he didn't trust him with anyone else, and Jack decided to go with Rousseau, who had lived on this island for sixteen years, she probably knew her way around better than Kate, that had been here for less than two months. Jack wasn't happy about what would happen next.

"The blood trail ends here," Rousseau announced; the day had already turned into night.

"What do you mean?" Jack asked annoyed.

"It ends," she answered simply.

"You're telling me she stopped bleeding here?"

"No. I'm telling you that she fooled us. Doubled back!"

"Better call the boat," Ben said sarcastically, "tell them she's getting a real big bundle of firewood."

Jack moved his hands to pick the phone, but he didn't find it in his pocket. "Where is it?"

"Ok I probably should have told you that I saw her take the phone but you beat me up, Jack. I owed you one." Ben said

"What are you talking about?" Jack asked infuriated that things were getting worse by the minute.

"Kate took it when she hugged you!" Ben explained and Jack finally understood what had happened, "she found the right trail too but you wouldn't listen to her, so I guess she's taken matters into her own hands. But look on the bright side, at least somebody around here knows what the hell they're doing."

Jack tried not to be bothered by Ben's mind games, but he couldn't help himself and tugged on the rope tying Ben's hands tighter together. They headed off back in the direction they had come. And all the while he couldn't stop thinking about her.

Kate had stolen the phone from his pocket and he didn't even notice it. She had hugged him, but it was just a trick, and he had fallen for it. But that's what she did, she was a criminal and he should have known better than to trust her. He just wished that he didn't care so much.

----------------------

_Jack was angry when he entered the hatch with Locke and the alarm was beeping, Locke went into the computer room to enter the numbers and Jack went to find out what was wrong. Sawyer was lying on the floor, Jack called out to Kate, but she didn't answer him. Jack was mad at her, he had trusted her with a simple task, she just needed to keep an eye on Sawyer an push the bottom, why couldn't she just help him for once?_

_It was his fault really, he knew better than to ask something of Kate. Sawyer once told Jack that she was a liar. That she didn't care about anyone else, but herself. And as hard as Jack tried to tell himself that there was a good side to Kate she was always proved him wrong._

_Well, this time she was going to get an earful from Jack!_

_Charlie had seen Kate a little while earlier on the path back to the caves, and Jack was going to go after her and demand to know what happened to her and why she abandon Sawyer. This time she was going to tell him the truth. He needed to know the truth._

_He found her sitting in the jungle, in the path to the caves just like Charlie had said. She was looking lost, completely out of herself, vulnerable. She didn't even notice as he approached her. _

"_Kate, what the hell are you doing out here?" He demanded her answer. "What happened in the hatch, Kate? Why'd you leave? I come back, I find Sawyer just lying on the ground. You just took off..."_

"_Is he okay?" She asked_

"_Yes, Kate, he's fine," he answered __mockingly to what he thought was fake concern._

"_I'm sorry," she apologized._

"_Are you?" _

"_Yeah, I'm sorry." She yelled at him, fed up with him pointing fingers at her. "I'm sorry that I am not as perfect as you. I'm sorry that I'm not as good!" She began to cry._

"_Okay, what's going on with you?"_

"_Just forget it," she said and begun to leave, but he grabbed her arms. _

"_No, don't walk away from me.__" He demanded grabbing her arm like Wayne, her father, had done so many times. Like he had done the night she murdered him. Jack grabbed her arm the way Sawyer had grabbed it earlier, before Wayne took over his body and tried to choke her to death._

"_Let go of me. Just..." She warned with a voice __Jack had never heard from her lips._

"_No. Kate." He grabbed her stronger, he wasn't going to let her go without an explanation. "Kate, Kate, Kate." He called her name, but she didn't listen. He held her tight in his arms. _

"_Don't! I've got..." She struggled desperately to break free, the way Jack held her it reminded her of how her father used to hold her. She didn't want Jack near her, it felt like Wayne was holding her. He wanted to make him to stop, she didn't want him to touch her. She finally broke down crying, relinquishing control. She wasn't strong enough to fight him off, to fight Wayne off._

"_It's okay," Jack said hugging her. He was stunned by her shown of fear. "It's okay!" He repeated trying to calm her. _

"_Please, this place is crazy," she told him with tears on her eyes, "it's just… I can't… it's driving me nuts!" _

"_I know. It's okay. It's alright. It's alright."_

_He looked at, he wanted to make her feel better, and suddenly she kissed him. He kissed her back, he had been dreaming of this every since he met her._

_She kissed him, because she was afraid of him, she wanted to know if he was Wayne. She still felt Sawyer's hands on her throat trying to choke her. She could still hear Sawyer's voice asking her why she killed him. But she knew it wasn't Sawyer, it was Wayne. And the way Jack grabbed her arm, the way he held her in place. It felt like it was Wayne._

_And as she kissed him, it reminded her of Wayne. The way he kissed her, she could taste the alcohol on Jack's mouth. She wasn't kissing Jack, she was kissing Wayne. Wayne was following her everywhere she went. She broke the kiss, looking at Jack, but seeing Wayne. _

_Jack watched her running off, he was confused. "Kate!" He called her, but she didn't look back._

_He wanted to know, he wanted to know why she abandoned Sawyer, but she didn't tell him. This was typical of Kate, she never told him the truth why would she start telling him now just because he asked her forcefully? She was always going to keep lying to him!_

_Jack needed to know her, to know why she was a fugitive. She once confessed to him that she had killed a man, she told him she had loved him. Jack needed to know who he was, why did she love him, why did she kept running! He loved Kate and he wanted to help her, but he needed to know why she was the way she was. It was driving him crazy._

----------------------

Rousseau was walking Ben now, and they were a few feet behind their group. Jack heard a commotion. They had probably joined up with the people who were at the beach. Jack could hear their voices now. Everyone was hugging and cheering. Jack was getting nearer when he heard Hurley.

"He is dead," Hurley said with a crying voice, "Charlie's dead!"

Jack felt his heart beating heavily. He couldn't believe this, Charlie died! He never wanted Charlie to go down to the looking glass station. And this was all Locke's fault. If he hadn't blown up the submarine, Jack would be out of the island by now, and Charlie would never have had to die.

"No!" Jack heard Claire's saying. Everyone was in silence. "What, what happened? I mean, how, how did he..."

"He was trying to help us!" Hurley said crying.

Jack, Rousseau and Ben finally met with them at the cockpit wreckage. Once Jack laid his eyes on Locke, standing there as if nothing had happened Jack couldn't control his rage. Jack ran towards John and attacked him, punching him in the face without any warning. John fell on the floor Jack knew that everyone was watching him, but didn't care.

John tried to grab his gun, Jack saw him moving, he anticipated his actions and grabbed the gun from Locke's hand. Jack cocked the gun and pointed it at Locke. Locke looked up at Jack surprised, lying on the floor unable to move.

"Jack!" He heard Juliet calling his name, but there was nothing she could say to stop him now.

"You're not gonna shoot me, Jack. Any more than I was gonna shoot..." Jack couldn't listen to his voice anymore, Locke sound just like Ben.

Jack pulled the trigger without a second thought, but no bullet fired. Jack was surprised and Locke's face was a mirror of his.

"It's not loaded," Locke told him, Jack was furious, he attacked Locke again.

"Come on," Sayid said pulling Jack away.

"Let go of me!" Jack complained. "Do you know what he did?"

"Yes I know what he did!" Sayid shouted and Locke got up.

"All I did," Locke started to explain, "all I have ever done, has been in the best interest of all of us."

"Are you insane?" Jack shouted his question.

"I know I, I have a lot of explaining to do. But, I never did anything to hurt any of you. I even risked my life to tell you there was a traitor in your midst." He pointed at Juliet, she looked at Jack for support.

"She helped us, John." Jack said, "all you ever did was blow up every chance we had of getting off of this island. You killed Naomi."

"Well," Ben interrupted, "technically, he didn't kill her, yet."

"Yes, he did!" Kate announced joining the group. "She just died. She didn't give you up, John. She covered for us, and she fixed this." Kate handed the phone back to Jack who was glad she stole it in the first place. "They're on their way."

"She didn't cover for anyone." Locke insisted, "she wants her people to come here. And trust me, when they do we had better be far away from here. I'm going to the Barracks. The Others abandoned them. It's the only place on the Island with any form of security right now, it'll have to do until I can think of something else. Until then, if you wanna live, you need to come with me."

"No one's going anywhere with you, John." Jack shouted, "because they're not crazy!"

"He's not crazy." Hurley shouted surprising everyone. "What about Charlie? Charlie went down to that place so we could all be rescued. And whatever he did down there, it worked." Hurley stopped to think. "But then something must have happened. He must have heard something before he..." Hurley didn't want to say it again. "I don't know why, but he changed his mind! Because the last thing he did was to warn us that the people on that boat are not who they said they were. So I'm not listening to you. I'm listening to my friend. I'm listening to Charlie!"

Hurley surprised everyone as he took Locke's side standing behind him. Locke was satisfied that he had got Hurley to support, and hopefully after his speech more people would come.

"Anyone else?" Locke asked, "there isn't much time."

Jack watched helplessly as Claire walked over to Hurley and John carrying Aaron with her, soon a number of other people joined them, their group was now divided in two.

"Jack with your permission, I'd like to go with John." Ben asked

"He's all yours!" Jack said looking at Locke with eyes full of anger.

Rousseau and Ben joined Locke together with Alex and her boyfriend Karl. It was as if Jack was losing to Locke, were these people crazy? He heard Bernard and Rose talking about joining Locke's group, Jack was glad that she stood loyally by his side. So did Kate and Juliet. But then Jack noticed Sawyer moving.

"What are you doing?" Kate asked Sawyer.

"Same thing I've always done, Kate." He answered frowning at her. "Surviving!"

"You know where to find us when you change your mind." Locke said as it started to rain, and led his group away.

Jack kept looking as they left with a sense of loss; his camp had been split into two factions. He tried not think that those people that had gone with Locke didn't trust him, but it was all Jack could think about.

Jack looked around, Kate shared his same feelings as she watched Sawyer go, perhaps a bit of hurt by his choice. She could have gone with him, but she chose to stay with Jack. He was glad she did. He searched the faces of the people who chose him, and she was there as well, Juliet smiled sympathetically at him. He could bet that she knew exactly what he was thinking.

Jack admitted to himself that he was relieved that Juliet stayed. He still had fears that she was working for Ben. But if that was the case she would have taken the opportunity and would have gone with Locke. But just like Kate she had chose him!

----------------------

_Jack was pacing around his cage, this was certainly an upgrade from the aquarium. Now he had people drop by to watch him as if he was animal in a zoo. But that wasn't what worried him. Juliet was going to be executed because she had killed __Danny Pickett in order to save Kate and Sawyer, so Alex had helped him escape to go beg Ben for Juliet's life._

"Ben has commuted Juliet's sentence."_ He still remembered Isabel's voice. _"Execution is off the table. He says the rules don't apply. He has, however, ordered her to be marked."

_Jack didn't know what the hell that meant, but the look on Tom and Alex's face told him that it couldn't be something good. She was going to be marked, like what? Like a horse? He needed to know what was happening._

_He first heard her approaching and then he watched as she walked toward him with a sandwich on her hand. Jack breathed with relief, he didn't know what they had done to Juliet, but she was fine, although he noticed that she was limping. _

"_I heard you only liked them grilled." She joked, and he felt a little embarrassed, still it was good to hear her voice._

"_I miss the toothpicks, too." She passed him the sandwich through the bars. "Let me see!" He demanded her to show him the mark. _

"_Jack," she pleaded for him to let it go, she didn't want his pity._

"_They marked you? Let me see it?"_

_She didn't argue with him, but he knew she wasn't happy about showing him the mark. She turned her back to him, lifting up her shirt. Jack's breath caught up on his throat as he looked at what seemed like a nasty hot brand on the small of her back. _

"_Break a branch off that aloe plant over there..." He ordered. _

"_It's okay, Jack," she asked him not to bother._

"_Please, please do it!" He needed to do something nice for her._

_After what she was put through, he felt guilty, if he hadn't said she wanted to kill Ben at surgery, this would never have happened. She obeyed him and brought him a piece of aloe. She moved carefully, he could tell she was in pain. _

"_Turn around," he said kneeling on the floor, he put his hands on her hip holding her in place as he applied aloe to the mark. _

_He loved how soft her skin felt on his finger, how tender her body moved as she breathed, and how good the smell of her was. The mark was bright red on her fair skin. It looked like it hurt really badly, it would be so easy to kiss it and make it better._

_But what right he had to do it? He had turned her life into a living hell. _

"_Why did you help me?" She asked_

"_He told you he was going to let you go home. He told me the same thing. We're going to make sure he keeps his word."_

"_And how are we going to do that?"_

"_Together!" _

"_They'll be coming for you in a few minutes. All of them. Your friends know where we are so we have to leave this island to go back to where we live."_

"_Go where?"_

"_Well, Ben calls it home."_

----------------------

Sometime later Jack stood by himself looking inside the front section of the plane wreckage because he needed to be alone. Some of his group headed back at the beach, Jack stayed behind along with Kate, Juliet and Sayid.

The rain was still pouring heavily and as Jack stared into the cockpit he couldn't help, but be reminded of his second day on the island, when Kate, Charlie and Jack went to look for the plane transceiver. That day the monster attacked for the first time and killed the pilot. Charlie had even written a song about it.

Jack thought smiling, "_I was on the plane loo_," he heard Charlie's voice singing on his mind, "_when the cockpit shook/the smokey thing said boo/and the monster eats the Pilot!"_

"Are you thinking of Charlie?" Kate asked joining him.

"Feels like a hundred years ago that we came out here together. How did this happen?" He asked and was interrupted by a loud noise.

"Thunder's getting louder," Kate commented.

"That's not thunder," Jack said looking up at the sky, they saw a helicopter hovering close to them, shinning a light on Jack and Kate. Soon after that they saw someone parachuting out. "Come on!"

----------------------

**Author's Note:** Did you like the lyrics I wrote to Monster Eats the Pilot? I confess, I'm not a good lyricist. =] I don't like to beg, but I'm anxious for reviews, so if you are so kind, please leave me one, even if you didn't like it. Getting a your-story-stinks review is better than nothing!


	6. You’re in Love

**You're ****in Love**  
[Chapter 05 – Part 06 of 12]

**Author's Note:** This chapter is not centric on anyone in particular. As I was writing it I remembered how much I used to love Jacket, but I'm glad that I jumped out of the Skate ship and threw away my Jacket, because I simply love Suliet. =] Anyway, there's some Jacket loving coming up with a little bit of Jate and Skate.

**Chapter Summary:** Sawyer is tormented by his choice of leaving Kate behind to go along with John Locke, who is now saying he gets his orders from Walt… Only taller! Meanwhile, back at the beach Jack still has trouble deciding which women he likes the most, Kate or Juliet?

----------------------

Jack and Kate walked back to the front section of the plane wreckage where Juliet and Sayid were waiting for them to return since they had went to find the parachutist. A skinny man was walking along with them, Juliet and Sayid shared a worried look. The man stayed away fussing with the satellite phone as Kate and Jack approached their people.

"So?" Juliet was the first to ask as Jack and Kate approached them.

"That guy over there is Daniel, he is from Naomi's boat, the helicopter hit a storm so he parachuted before it crashed." Jack explained, "According to him there were four people on the chopper, and he wants us to help him find the rest of his people."

"Are they really here to help us?" Sayid asked still worried about Locke's speech.

"He says they are," Kate answered.

"What do you mean?" Juliet asked

"He is being secretive," Jack explained, "and he brought a gun with him."

"So, what do we do next?" Juliet asked concerned

"The phone has some kind of GPS," Jack said, "Kate and I are going to go help him find his friends and we'll see from there."

"I wanna go!" Juliet said

"No way, you stay put!" Jack told her with a stern voice. Sayid and Kate exchanged looks.

"Well, I'll be with Daniel, waiting for you." Kate excused herself from the uncomfortable conversation she knew was about to happen.

"And I'll be heading back the beach," Sayid said, "people must wondering why we are taking so long to get back." He left Jack and Juliet alone.

"What do you mean, Jack? I stay put?" Juliet asked trying not to show her anger as she crossed her arms.

"It's too dangerous, Juliet. We don't know what these people are here for!"

"How come Kate can go?" She asked trying to mask the jealousy she was feeling.

"Kate is a grown up woman, she can do whatever she wants?" Juliet looked at him astonished at what he had just said. "And you are a woman, of course," Jack laughed at how his argument sounded, "but I would feel really bad if something happened to you!"

"I can take care of myself," she argued.

"I don't doubt that, you kicked my ass when I was prisoner!" They smiled at each other. He brought his hands up to stroke her face. "But I don't want to lose you!"

She looked at him for moment, for the first time she didn't know what he was thinking. After Juliet read his file she felt like she knew him better than anyone. And for the short time she had known him, she had been able to predict all of his actions. But now she didn't know what to make of his insistence of her not going along.

She liked that he cared about her, and she knew that it was genuine, she knew he would feel horrible if she something ever happened to her. Maybe it was her new found feelings for the man in front of her that was messing with her head. But the thing that hurt the most was that she knew him to well.

Deep down inside her she knew what he was thinking, she knew that he was lying. He didn't want her to come because he wanted to be alone with Kate. And she knew that was lying to himself that this was not the reason, that he really was just worried about Juliet. And she hated him for that.

"Ok," she said looking down at the floor. She couldn't keep looking at him. "I'll go back to the beach, but you take care."

"I will!" He smiled and they went separated ways.

----------------------

Sawyer watched with impatience as Locke smiled contently at the pouring rain hitting his face. He still didn't know for sure why he had turned his back on Jack and went with this lunatic. For sure it wasn't because Charlie told Desmond before he died that the Naomi's boat was not Penny's boat.

And it sure wasn't because he agreed with Locke, hell, even though Sawyer pretended to hate Jack, there was no way in hell he would ever chose Locke over Jack. But Sawyer had done it and he wasn't entirely sure why! He wanted to get away from Kate, but that wasn't the only reason.

He had wanted to see her reaction. He still had hoped that she would have gone with him. But she chose to stay with Jack. At least now Sawyer knew who she really cared about. But also, he was now stuck with the crazy man who locked Sawyer in a room to kill his father!

"Let's go," Locke said as the rain suddenly stopped.

"Why are you going east?" Sawyer asked suspiciously, "I thought you said the Barracks were due south."

"Because, James, we have to make a little detour first."

"Detour to what?"

"There's a cabin I have to go to." Locke explained

"I thought the cabin was back that way," Hurley interrupted pointing to the other direction, both Ben and Locke eyed him surprised.

"What did you say Hugo?" Locke asked intrigued.

"I… er… thought you were talking about the airplane cabin," Hurley tried to cover his mistake, but Locke and Ben still stared at him.

"Why are we wasting our time going to some shack anyway?" Sawyer asked when they begun to move.

"Because we're supposed to," Locke answered simply.

"Right," Sawyer said sarcastically, "like you were supposed to throw a knife into that Naomi chick's back."

"Uh-huh!" Locke answered smiling shyly.

"You mind telling us who you're getting your orders from, Colonel Kurtz?" Sawyer asked.

"I got them from Walt," the others looked at him confused.

Sawyer thought for a moment, John Locke had finally gone crazy. He got his orders from Walt. Walt as in Michael's son Walt? The same ten year old boy who Tom had kidnapped? The same boy who Michael murdered Ana Lucia and Libby and then betrayed them to get Walt back? The same boy that sailed away with his father back to the land of the living? That Walt?!

"What the hell do you mean you saw Walt? In a dream?" Sawyer asked confused.

"No dream, it was Walt. Only, taller."

"Taller?" Sawyer repeated sarcastically. "What like a giant? OK, what exactly did Walt tell you?"

"He said I had work to do. That I had to stop this woman, Naomi, from bringing the rest of her people here."

"What? You didn't ask any follow-up questions?" Sawyer asked sarcastically at the man's madness.

"Ben had shot me and left me for dead, Walt saved my life, so I pretty much took him at his word."

"He shot you? Yet here you are fit as a fiddle tromping through the jungle." Sawyer said and John stopped, lifting up his shirt to show him a bullet wound.

"The bullet went in one side, came out the other. I'd probably be dead if I still had a kidney there. Anything else?"

Sawyer was silently stunned by the mention of Locke's kidney. He was reminded of the real Sawyer, the man he had killed few days ago. Sawyer decided that there was nothing more to be said. He wasn't going to keep questioning Locke's sanity, for all he knew the man was telling the truth. This island was crazy anyway.

There were black smoke things that knocked down trees and ate people, there were wrecked ships in the middle of the jungle, polar bears and big-ass horses from his past. There were boars that harassed Sawyer, and tree frogs that annoyed him to death. There were whispers in the jungle, utopian initiatives, Others, and crazy French chicks. There were buttons to push every 108 minutes or else the world exploded. So who was Sawyer to question Locke's sanity? If he said he saw giant Walt, than he did!

They were walking in silence for a long time when they decided they needed a break. Sawyer watched from a distance as Ben, his daughter and her boyfriend started to talk.

"Alex. Alex, hey." Ben begun.

"What?" She asked

"Something I need to tell you."

"Keep your mouth shut, Mr Linus."

"Karl!" Ben stressed his name sarcastically. "Now if you're gonna sleep with my daughter, I insist you call me Ben."

The young man was angry, Sawyer acted quickly before he did something stupid. "Easy kid, guy's just trying to get in your head. Go take a walk or something." Alex and Karl left them behind.

"Mind if I ask you a question, James?" Ben asked.

"Yeah I do!"

"Why'd you leave Kate behind?" Ben taunted him

"Wasting your time, Yoda."

"I know it's not pleasant but, let's face it, you really don't stand a chance now..."

"Chance of what?"

"James. Look at yourself. Yes, on this Island you're brave, daring, handsome, you're someone, but if you left with them, back in the real-world a low-life scam artist like you could never compete with a first class surgeon." Sawyer felt his blood rushing to his head as all his insecurities regarding his relationship with Kate came out of Ben's mouth. "I think Kate was really upset when you made your choice to come with us. Thank god she has Jack there to comfort..."

Sawyer attacked Ben, beating him violently, he wasn't gonna let him keep saying what he already suspected. He didn't want to hear it from someone else's lips. It only hurt more.

"James! Don't!" Locke stopped him.

"Don't what! Anyone wanna tell me why we're keeping this guy alive?"

"We're keeping him alive because he's been on this Island a lot longer than any of us. Because he has information we need. And because apart from his mouth, he's completely harmless."

"His mouth put that hole in your gut?" Sawyer said the obvious

"Ok, James. Let's execute him, right here right now, in front of his daughter!" Locke said making Sawyer look around, the little version of Sheena looked at him pleading. Locke was right, he couldn't do it.

"It's only a matter of time before he gets us, Johnny, and I bet he's already figured out how he's gonna do it. So you walk him."

Sawyer handed Locke Ben's rope. He picked up a rifle and walked away. He could still hear Ben insinuation that Kate would go crying on Jack's shoulders. Sawyer was furious, he shouldn't have come with Locke, it was a stupid idea, but there was no turning back now. He might have driven Kate closer to Jack now, but at least he knew how she truly felt.

Locke's group came upon a wide stream, but the strange thing was that they could hear someone laughing. When they came nearer they saw a redheaded woman playing in the water as if she was a little girl. She looked at them embarrassed when she finally spotted them.

----------------------

"Jack still isn't back. Anything?" Juliet asked Sayid sitting beside him on the sand.

"No," he answered, "but it's a big Island. The freighter could be approaching from the other side."

"That's the spirit!"

"Juliet, you lived amongst the Others, why would Ben say the people coming here intend to do us harm?"

"Because he's a liar," she told him, "and he's trying to scare us, that's what Ben does. Or, because the people coming here intend to do us harm. How many guns do you have left?" He looked at her eyes.

"What are you suggesting?"

"We go back to the cockpit and track Jack and Kate from there. We need to cover their backs!"

"Ok, I'll go," he said, "alone!"

"Why?" She asked offended by his boldness.

"I was there when Jack told you to stay put." She looked kind of hurt, and Sayid couldn't stand it. "I understand him, and I would not want to do something Jack doesn't approve."

"Jack is not the boss of me," she said calmly, "and neither are you!"

"Ok," Sayid recognized defeat, "but if Jack asks, you tricked me into this!" They got up and went to pick the guns.

----------------------

Her name was Charlotte and she had parachuted out of a helicopter, she was from Naomi's boat and was wearing a transponder. This pissed off Locke, because clearly, if they tracked her down they would be in serious danger. So he tied her transponder to Vincent's neck and sent the Labrador back to the beach camp.

One thing that intrigued Sawyer was that she said that their plane, oceanic 815, had been found in the bottom of the ocean, just like Locke's father said it was. So this was either a conspiracy, or this island was a really little hot for heaven!

They all saw a flare shooting up into the sky.

"That's them. That's somebody from my team." Charlotte said, and Locke's group looked around not sure what to make of it. "What's wrong with you people? We're here because of you. I just almost died jumping out of a helicopter because you called us for help."

"Maybe we should go see who launched that flare," Hurley suggested.

"Yeah I mean they could be hurt, John," Claire agreed with Hurley.

"She's lying," Locke insisted, "and whatever they came for, it isn't us. We keep moving forwards as planned."

"Sure, who are we to argue with taller-ghost-Walt," Sawyer commented sarcastically.

"You know what?" Charlotte said getting up to leave. "You people do whatever you want?"

"I want you to come with us." Locke said and it all happened to fast.

"I'm not asking for permission, and if you think you're gonna bloody stop me from getting to my..."

She was stopped by two gunshots that hit her chest. Everyone was surprised to find out that Ben had been the one to pull the trigger. Karl was the first to realize that the gun he had tucked on his trousers were missing. Sawyer tackled Ben down to the floor and this time no one would stop him from beating the life out of him. He hated that man so much!

"What did you do, you son of a bitch?" Sawyer yelled punching him.

Charlotte begun to stir and mumbled, "vest!"

"What?" Locke asked as he was trying to help her.

"Vest, vest," she repeated weakly. To Ben's despair Locke unzipped her coat and found two bullets caught in a bulletproof vest.

Sawyer was relieved the girl was lucky to be alive, but this time he wasn't going to let Locke keep Ben alive. Sawyer threw him against a tree and pointed a gun at his face. The man started to plead, but Sawyer knew he was better off dead. Sawyer noticed as Locke approached him.

"I guess this is the part where I'm supposed to say I told you so." He says.

"James, I stand corrected."

"You want me to do it?"

"No it's my mess, I'll clean it up." Locke said getting the gun from Sawyer.

"No, wait!" Alex tried to help her father.

"Danielle, you should escort Alex away from here." Locke ordered.

"No, no!" Alex cried

"Let's go, come on, Alex." Her mother tried to pull her away. She didn't agree with what they were about to do, but the man who was ready to be executed had stolen her baby from her just three days after she was born. She wasn't going to feel guilty for not stopping them.

"She's right, let's go." Karl said helping her with Alex.

"Anyone who doesn't want to see this should leave now." Locke announced

"John we should talk about this!" Claire insisted she wasn't happy how things were playing out either.

"Claire, what if one of those bullets had hit you or the baby?" Locke said and Claire didn't know how to argue.

"John, listen. I have information that you need. I have answers." Ben pleaded, Locke seemed to consider for a moment.

"What is the Monster?" He asked

"What?" Ben asked confused.

"The black smoke, the Monster, what is it?"

"I don't know," Ben answered honestly.

"Then goodbye, Benjamin!" John pointed the gun at him.

"Her name is Charlotte Lewis!" Ben spluttered getting everyone's attention. "Charlotte Staples Lewis. Born July second, nineteen seventy-nine, Essex, England. Parents David and Jeanette. Eldest of three, all girls. She was raised in Bromsgrove. Did her undergraduate studies at Kent. Took her PhD in Cultural Anthropology at Oxford. She's here with two other team members and a pilot. Their names Daniel Faraday, Miles Straume, Frank Lapidus." Charlotte stared at him speechless. "Your instinct was right, John, these people are a threat, and if you shoot me you'll never know how great a threat they were. Because I know what they're doing here. I know what they want."

"What do they want?" Sawyer asked pissed

"Me, James, they want me!" Ben answered.

----------------------

The more they found out about Naomi's people the more suspicious they got. Jack and Kate had found a box full of gas mask that Daniel avoided answering why those were for simply stating that he wasn't in charge of packing. That was right before he admitted that getting the survivors off the island was not their primary objective.

Then as they helped Daniel find his people they came upon a short Asian guy with bad attitude that apparently talked to dead people. His name was Miles and he had held Jack and Kate prisoner as he kneeled on the floor whispering to Naomi's dead body while Daniel, who they learned later was a physicist, mumbled something about the light not scattering quite right on the island.

For Jack's relief he had seen Juliet and Sayid hiding behind the trees just waiting for the right time to act. Boy, was he happy she agreed to go back to the beach. After the tables were turned they found Charlotte's transponder tied up to Vincent which told them that Locke had got Charlotte. And when the flare shot up into the sky they were able to track down the pilot.

He was a little shook up saying he had seen a cow strolling peacefully, but the good news was that the helicopter didn't crash he was able to put it down safely. Sayid examined the helicopter saying that it had same minor damages, but it would defiantly fly. Frank, the pilot had some wounds so Juliet tended it while Jack kept watch on the others.

"Look as bad as it feels?" Frank asked as Juliet worked on a wound on his forehead.

"How bad does it feel?" She asked and he laughed.

"What's your name again?"

"Juliet," she answered.

"Juliet," he repeated, "Juliet what?"

"Juliet Burke"

"Juliet Burke," he repeated again thinking, "You weren't on that plane, were you?" She stopped to look at him. "Miles!" He shouted.

"Yeah?" The Asian guy shouted back a little far from them.

"This is Juliet, and she was not on the plane." Frank said and Juliet watched him with attention.

"What? You sure?" Miles asked

"You know how many times I studied that damn manifest? Believe me there's no Juliet Burke on that plane. She's a native."

"Really..." Miles said approaching them furiously, "where is he?!!"

"Back off!" Jack, who was watching as the scene unfolded, said putting himself protectively in front of Juliet.

"Where's who?" Juliet asked calmly

"You wanna know why we're here? I'll tell you why we're here!" He showed them a picture of Ben, Juliet smirked slightly. "We're here for Benjamin Linus. Now where is he?"

Their masks were down know, they hadn't truly came here rescue the survivors of flight 815, they were here for Benjamin Linus, and that explained how Ben tried everything to stop Jack from phoning their boat. One thing wasn't right though, Jack thought, if Naomi wasn't on a rescue mission, and she wasn't working for Penny like Charlie had warned them before he died. Then why was she carrying a picture of Desmond and Penny? It didn't make any sense.

The four of them talked and decided that someone should go back to the camp to get Desmond while Sayid and Miles went to the barracks. Sayid had agreed with Miles that if he got Charlotte back from Locke then they would take him to the freighter on the helicopter's next trip. Juliet was in charge to get Desmond. After everything was set Jack followed Juliet as she was walking back to the beach camp.

"Hey," Jack called out to Juliet before she left, "can I talk to you?"

"Sure!" She turned around to face him. The others were far enough not to hear them.

"I'm sorry I asked you to stay put, but look on the bright side, if you had come with us, who would have saved my ass?" He asked tenderly, she smiled.

"It's ok, Jack, I'm not mad at you."

"I know, but I feel like I need to explain." He stopped to think, "it's just that when you left with Sawyer, I was so worried about you! I couldn't stop thinking about what could have gone wrong, and what I would have done without you." She smiled at him. "When all of this is over, and we are on the boat back to the real world, can we talk about where this is going?"

"Talk about what?" She pretended not to understand.

"Us," he said holding his breath.

"I'd love to!" She smiled coyly then turned around and left. He watched her leaving with a big smile on his face.

He joined Kate after Juliet was gone, but his head was someplace else. Kate was watching as said packed his backpack.

"Kinda sucks, huh?" She commented

"What's that?"

"Being told not to come along," Jack chuckled remembering that Sayid had said this wasn't the kind of mission Jack should be involved. Actually, this was the second time Sayid had told Jack that he wasn't needed. "Now you know what it feels like to be me."

"Does that mean I should wait twenty minutes and go anyway?" They laughed together.

"Touché!"

"You should go with them, Kate."

"Are you serious?" She asked suddenly very interested.

"Yeah," he answered.

"What, don't you trust Sayid?"

"I don't trust Locke," Jack explained.

"So what's preventing him from doing to me what he did to Naomi?"

"Sawyer won't let him." Kate didn't need to hear more encouragement, she walked towards Sayid and Miles holding up her gun.

"Got room for one more?" She asked.

"Oh, yeah, she gets a gun." Miles commented sarcastically.

"Gun's a last resort, Kate," Sayid told her the condition.

"You give Locke that same speech?" Kate asked to what he didn't answer.

"Hey, let's move out!" Miles said impatiently.

The tree left for the journey to the barracks, Jack was left with Frank and Daniel, Jack reached for a bottle of water in the Helicopter.

"Hey, this guy Sayid," Frank said, "where's he from?"

"Iraq."

"Iraq? He's just gonna go and work everything out? What was he, a diplomat?"

"No," Jack said smirking, "no, he was a torturer!"

----------------------

Once Sayid, Kate and Miles arrived at the Barracks the place looked deserted, they found Hurley tied up in a closet, but he was just bait, part of Locke's trap. Kate had no idea where the two men she came with were, she was locked into Ben's old room with none other than Sawyer.

"So what, I'm your prisoner?" She asked Sawyer as he guarded the door.

"If that sorta thing turns you on," he teased, but she wasn't amused, she was angry.

"What are you doing here with Locke?"

"I'm not with him!" He said

"Yeah, you are, James."

"Then what are you doing with Jack?"

"I went with Jack because I believe he can get us off this island." Sawyer shook his head, not sure if he believed, he approached her.

"I guess that's the difference between us," he said sitting next to her in bed, "I ain't looking to leave."

"Why not?"

"Cause, I ain't got nothing back there for me."

"What's here that's so much better?" Kate asked stunned by his answer.

"Why do you want to go back, Kate?" He asked in return. "Seem to recall you being shuttled off to jail before we landed here. So if you think there's anything waiting for you back home other than handcuffs, you really don't know how the world works. Look around us, Freckles. We've got roofs over our heads. Electricity, showers, beds."

"Yeah, how long, Sawyer? How long do you think we can play house?"

"Why don't we find out?" He asked with a lower voice. She understood what he was asking of her. He wanted her to stay with him, he was asking for a long term relationship. She looked him in the eyes smiling. "What? Are you going to stay?" He asked eagerly.

"No, I was just thinking, just last month you told me the opposite thing!" He looked at her confused. "I asked you what was so import that you wanted to leave this island so badly and you told you got nothing here worth staying for."

"Well," he said taking her face on his hands, "now I have, but I won't if you leave!" He looked deep into her eyes. "Stay with me, Freckles!" She didn't answer him, she kissed him.

----------------------

Juliet and Jack walked back to beach in silence, the air was thick around them and Juliet didn't even try to start up a small talk. She knew Jack needed his space, the man had barely slept or eaten for the past few days. And those were hell on him. Jack led the way followed by Daniel and Charlotte, who were swapping stories. Juliet stayed behind.

She liked to stay behind, this way she was far enough from Jack that they didn't have to pretend the silence wasn't bothering them. But also, because she knew the leader always walked behind. The leader, the true leader, walked behind, accompanied people and guided them, but from the back. She knew how stupid it sounded, Jack was their leader and she had no troubles with it. But she knew someone had to stay on the back, to watch everyone else.

When they arrived at the beach, people gathered around them, wanting to know where the rest of them were. Jack cleared his mouth before reciting the afternoon news.

"Well, as you all must already know, we have found the people from the helicopter." Jack begun, "these are Daniel and Charlotte, they are from the freighter. Locke has one of his people, his name is Miles, and the pilot, Frank, just took off with Sayid and Desmond." There was a hush of murmurs. "They went to find out who these people are working for." Jack finished, and started to make his way towards his tent.

"And where is Kate?" Sun asked.

Jack took a time before he answered, Juliet didn't miss the emotions on his face. "Kate stayed with Locke!" Jack explained and left.

Soon everyone went to take care of their business, some went to the caves to pick up water, some went to wash clothes and others to pick up some fruit. Juliet and Sun kept watching as Jack disappeared inside his tent. Sun recognized the jealous look on Juliet's face as she approached her.

"So, what is going on with you and Jack?" Sun asked

"What do you mean?" Juliet asked laughing nervously, she didn't know what was wrong with herself. Juliet was almost always composed and in control of herself.

"You're in love, Juliet!" Sun stated

"Why do you say that?" Juliet tried to dismiss her.

"I saw the look of hurt on Jack's face when he said Kate chose Locke. And I'm guessing by the way you are furrowing your brow that it bothered you."

"It's the sun," Juliet blinked, "it's too bright, it's irritating my eyes! I'm just squinting." She lied

"If you say so," Sun said and left Juliet alone with her thoughts.

----------------------

Sawyer watched Kate from a distance, she told him she would stay, but then he found out she didn't because of him. She had her own reasons for staying. She was going to be roommates with Claire. She defiantly didn't want to be in a long term relationship with Sawyer. He tried to tell himself that it was a relief, but he knew that he was really looking forward to shacking up with her.

Heck! This was Sawyer's dream. He wanted to have a beautiful woman, and lots of money to buy an island somewhere and sit on a beach drinking Mojitos until drunken. And he was sure Dharma had a similar product.

But he also knew that this wasn't Kate's plan. So when she walked into his house looking cute with a devious smile, he was sure she was up to something. She was trying to seduce him because she needed him for something.

"You are terrible at this, Freckles."

"Terrible at what?"

"You already said you didn't stay behind for me. So at least be woman enough to tell me you want to use me for something."

"All right, fair enough!" She said taking a sip from the wine he had given her. "I stayed to find out if Miles knows about me. That I am a fugitive."

"So does he?"

"He won't tell me unless I bring him Ben." She told him. "Now this is the part where I need to use you for something."

"Gee, here I was thinking that you wanted to use me for sex!" He grinned maliciously

----------------------

Juliet watched Jack as he tried to call the boat using the satellite phone. She knew by his body language that he wasn't being successful yet again. She knew he was worried about Desmond and Sayid. But she also knew that wasn't what was driving him to the edge.

"Maybe you should try a number other than the boat," Juliet said getting his attention, "like 911!" She joked, but he barely smiled. Sun approached Jack noticing his worried face and Juliet's hurt one.

"What's wrong?" Sun asked

"Nothing. I'm just having some trouble getting ahold of their boat." He answered

"You haven't heard from Sayid?" Sun wondered. "You said they left yesterday!"

"And I'm sure they're fine!"

"What if Locke was right? What if these people are here to hurt us?"

"Locke has no idea what he's doing," Jack said and Sun thought for a moment, she looked at Juliet and then back at Jack.

"Then why is Kate with him?" She asked and he didn't answer, he simply shrugged. Sun was very much aware of the betrayed look on his face. "Are you mad at Kate?"

"Sun," Jack said half laughing half miserable, "Kate can do whatever she wants. It's none of my business."

"Did she leave to stay with Sawyer?"

"Again, Sun, it's none of my business!" He insisted a little annoyed. He didn't want to talk about Kate right now.

"Come on, don't pretend this isn't bothering you! You are completely ignoring Juliet." Sun said looking over at Juliet who had resumed her chore. "I thought you two were together!"

"Who, me and Kate?"

"No, Juliet!" Sun says and Jack drops his head ashamed that Kate's was the first name to pop into his head. "Are you?"

"Sun, I would never have taken you for a gossiper." He insinuated, he just wanted her to stop with the questions.

"I'm not gossiping," she answered a little hurt by his comment, "I'm just interest to know why you are mad."

"I'm not mad!" He denied looking straight into her eyes.

"Yes, you are, Jack. But why? Because she went with Locke, or because she went with Sawyer?" Jack didn't answer, Sun looked towards Juliet. Sun was sure the woman was listening, even though she pretended not to. "I'm going to mind my own business, now." She said, still looking at Juliet. "Just be careful, or someone might end up hurt!" She said and left.

Jack refused to watch Sun leave, he tried to call the boat again, but no one picked up. He was furious, he looked over at Juliet's direction, but she wasn't there anymore. He looked at the sea as he thought about Juliet. Sun was right, he had been avoiding Juliet lately, and it was probably because Kate had chosen to stay with Locke and Sawyer.

As the day turned into night Jack got the feeling that Juliet was the one who was now avoiding him. If he found her alone she would walk away to do something else. He wondered if she had heard his conversation with Sun, and he worried about what she was thinking. He didn't want her to get the wrong idea. But he was afraid that she already decided to shut him off.

The moon was full on the sky, most people were already asleep including Juliet. But Jack was still awake watching their camp illuminated by the moonbeam. His thoughts where betraying him again, he was wondering why Kate decided to stay with Locke. He didn't want to think about it anymore, he really didn't!

His eyes fell upon Juliet's tent. He knew he liked her, and he so wanted her to make him forget about Kate. It was not like he was using Juliet, he was starting to have feelings for her. He admitted to himself that he also had feelings for Kate. But Kate was his past and Juliet was his future. With that thought in mind he got up and walked towards Juliet's tent.

She was sleeping peacefully, and he was surprised to see a smile on her face. How could she smile on her sleep when she was living on this hell of an island? She was beautiful, her features were as delicate as of an angel. He kneeled down next to her and couldn't hold the need to touch her.

She woke startled by the touch of his hand on her arm. She looked around to find him. "Jack," she said panting, "you scared the hell out of me!" She sat to be level with him.

"Shh," he said tucking a lock of her blonde her behind her ear, "it's ok!"

"What are you doing here?" She asked whispering well aware by the way it was light outside that it was past three in the morning.

He didn't answer. He cupped her face with his hand, stroking her cheek with his thumb. Her skin felt so soft, and she was so close. He pulled her to capture her lips with his. For a moment he felt her stiffen, but she corresponded to his kiss eventually.

It was different from the first time they kissed, when he just wanted to make her feel safe, it was different from the second time when she just wanted to make him sure that she was not gonna get into trouble. This time he was kissing her to prove something. He wanted to want to kiss her.

She tasted better than before and his answer came to him in the form of butterflies on his stomach. Yes, he wanted this! He moved on top of her and he was glad she wasn't fighting him because he needed to have her.

"Ouch!" She complained and he looked her in the eyes with concern. "My back," she explained, "it's still a little sore."

He remembered the mark the Others had burned into the small of her back. He resolved the problem by shifting position, putting her on top of him, her legs automatically fell to each side of him, straddling him. The heat from her body hit him, driving all good sense out of his mind. He captured her lips again. This time harder, almost forcefully. She still corresponded, letting him guide her.

His mouth left hers to nibble on her earlobe. He loved how she felt pressing down his body, his hands moved inside shirt, he needed to feel her skin. But she grabbed his wrist, stopping him from going any further.

"Jack, I don't want to do this!" She said, and the pleading tone of her voice was like blow to his stomach.

She looked at him, his eyes were haunted by some sort of emotion she didn't recognize. She searched his lips closing her eyes, she kissed him tenderly. He was motionless, confused by her actions, if she didn't want to go on, why was she kissing him? She finally let go of his writs placing little butterfly kisses along his Jaw.

His body begun to respond to her sweet caresses, Jack's breath became shallow as he felt her kissing down his neck. He cupped her face again, bringing her to his mouth, he kissed her hungrily, his left hand traveled down her body, while the other supported the back of her head. His hand stopped at her hip, he placed her where he needed her most.

She stopped the kiss frightfully. "No!" She protested, noticing how eager and ready he was to take their kiss to the next level.

"Yes!" He argued using his right hand bring her back to the kiss him.

She pushed away from him, kneeling on the floor. "I don't want to do it like this!" She sat next to him.

They looked at each other for a long moment having a silent conversation. She saw all kinds of emotion on his face. First she saw shame, and then guilt that lasted a little longer, it was replaced by anger and then hurt.

Her face never changed, but he recognized the mix of shock and fear, and also hurt. He realized it was pointless to keep lying there staring up at her, nothing would ever change. He got up and left her alone, thinking that sleep would not come easy after what just happened.

Juliet thought about Jack's motives to pay her a visit in the middle of the night. And the answer was clear even if she tried to deny it. She remembered Jack conversation with Sun. He just wanted to sleep with her to prove to her where his heart stood. But she didn't want it like that! She hugged her knees, trying to fight back tears, but to her dismay, they came bringing pain with them.


	7. You’re Important

**You're Important **  
[Chapter 06 – Part 07 of 12]

**Author's Note:** I haven't been getting much reviews, I don't know if people are still reading this. But since Patate Molle asked me to update, here it is. Oh, and thanks for the review, Patate Molle, I hope you keep reading it, the story is about to get really interesting. Even though my story seems to focus more on the romantic stuff, don't forget it's still a mystery!

Another chapter that isn't centric on anyone in particular. This chapter focuses on Jacket and Jate, with a major Skate fight. I'll ask one more time for reviews, because I'm not sure if I should continue posting it if nobody is reading. I already finished writing the story, for me it doesn't really matter if I keep posting.

**Chapter Summary:** Jack and Juliet's relationship hits troubled water now that Kate is back to the beach camp while Locke's group has trouble with the freighter crew.

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After John and his group arrived at the Barracks he had got himself two prisoners. Miles, the Asian guy from the freighter, the one he kept tied up on the boat house. And Ben, the manipulative leader of the Others, who was so dangerous that John decided to keep him under his own roof, locked up in a room on his basement.

Kate needed to take Ben to Miles, but she had a problem, and it was John. She went to the boat house and brought Miles with her, but John would never go out of his house long enough for her to sneak Miles in. That's where Sawyer came in handy. He visited John for a game of backgammon, where he warned him that Kate knew that Miles was at the boat house. This worried John that with Sawyer's help went to check on him.

But Kate was two steps ahead of him, and took the opportunity to bust Miles inside John's basement. She listened as Miles told Ben that he would tell the man he was working for that Benjamin Linus was found dead for three point two million dollars. Kate could care less, she only wanted to know one thing.

"Ooh, this is hot!" Miles teased as Kate pinned him to wall.

"You got your meeting, now I want my answer."

"We got your name when you called the freighter. Of course we know about you and everybody else on the 815 manifest."

"Then prove it."

"Your name is Katherine Anne Austen, and you're wanted for murder, fraud, arson, and a bunch of other stuff I can't remember. You're a fugitive. You got caught in Australia and the feds were bringing you back. So yeah, we know. If I were you, I'd stay right here, on the island. Who knows, maybe you didn't survive the crash."

She had heard everything she needed to hear. These people knew who she was, which made Sawyer right. If she was going to get out of the island it would be to get herself behind bars once she arrived on the real world. So she made up her mind she would stay behind, and live on the Barracks with Sawyer.

But John wasn't willing to let her stay with them. He was the leader here, and she had disobeyed his orders. Locke told her she wasn't welcomed here and that she should be gone by morning. That's how she ended up on Sawyer's bed that evening and he promised that if Locke had banished her he would unbanish her. And for however long it would last Kate let herself believe that things would be all right.

Then came morning!

For the first time she felt safe on Sawyer's arms. She was happy that she was finally beginning to trust him, and this wasn't an easy thing for Kate. He looked peacefully while he slept that she couldn't control herself. She woke him up with kisses, he flipped her down bellow him and soon he was all over her. She murmured something he could barely understand.

"Wait a minute," she said trying to make him stop, "wait a minute. Just slow down!"

"Oh, come on!" He complained not minding to stop, "it's not like we ain't never done it before. Now, I'm cool we didn't go all the way last night. I get it. You were sad. But I mean, how can you resist after that whole 'I'll keep you safe' thing?" He kissed her hard, not wanting to stop.

"No, Sawyer!" She said forcefully pushing him off.

"What? What, what'd I say?" He asked confused

"Forget it."

"Alright. You still think you might be pregnant."

"I'm not worried. And I'm not pregnant."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure." She said and he laughed relieved which disgusted her.

"I mean, whoo!"

"Would it have been the worst thing in the world?"

"Yes, yes it would have been the worst thing in the world. What would we have done with a baby?" She was put off because he was acting like a Jerk, so she started to get dressed.

"I'm going back to the beach." She informed him

"Beach? What, you're leaving? Because of this? That's that? You crawl up in my bed one second, and the next you just…"

"Goodbye, James!"

"Don't make this about me, Kate." He said a little more hurt than he allowed himself to admit. "You didn't want a baby any more than I did. You're just looking for some excuse to split, and now you got one. But it's alright, Freckles, I ain't gonna hold it against ya. I'm just gonna sit right here in my comfy bed. Because in about a week, you'll find some reason to get pissed at Jack and bounce right back to me." His last words were met with her hands slapping his face so hard that it took some of his balance.

He watched as she left, his anger was slowly fading away as he started to think about the cold words he had said. He didn't want her to leave, for the first time in his life he wanted to make things work. He got to his feet, put on last night's clothes and ran out to stop her from leaving.

"Hey, hold on a second!" He whispered as she marched away, she didn't even look back and he knew she had heard him. The sun hadn't even risen yet, but it was light, even thought the rest of them still slept comfortably on their beds. She had fastened her pace, but he wasn't going to let her go just yet. "I said wait!" He held her by the elbow.

"Let go of me!" She warned turning to face him, he obeyed.

"I just wanna say I'm sorry!" He told her.

"It doesn't matter," she said turning to leave, he walked behind her.

"Yes, it does, I was wrong, ok? I acted like a jerk. But Kate, you know that we aren't ready for a baby!" She tuned abruptly and he stopped her to look him in the eye.

"You don't get it, do you?" She shouted, then looked around knowing the last thing she needed was to be the first topic on the island's grapevine. "They didn't want to know if I was pregnant just because we slept together!" She said a little more composed and it finally hit him why she was so upset. She could have been impregnated by the Others! He felt remorse for being so stupid.

"I'm sorry!" It was the only thing he could manage to say, they looked at each other for a moment, he was worried about her. "But how do you know for sure that you're not."

"I just know!"

"Did you take a test?" He asked worried because he was the one who had gathered all the pregnancy test and kept them safely on his stash. Had Kate been going through his stuff? "How do you know for sure? It could have been a false negative." He was rumbling on concerned for her. He could only imagine how terrible it would be to get pregnant from a sexual assault.

"I got my period," she answered almost technically.

"Oh," Sawyer said as his cheeks became red with embarrassment.

"That's why I didn't want to sleep with you last night." He didn't answer, not sure what he should say. She simply turned around and left. But this time he didn't follow her. She wasn't sure if she was happy or sad that he didn't.

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Jack was frustrated, everything was going extremely wrong. But he should have gotten used to it already. After the whole thing with Locke, Jack still didn't trust these people. And the worst thing was that Sayid and Desmond weren't back yet. This made Jack even more worried, which brought him to a bigger problem. He couldn't find Daniel and Charlotte anywhere.

They were gone. Jin said they had gone into the jungle. Juliet and Jack had split up to look for their tail, after a while he heard her calling out to him. His first reaction was fear, that maybe there was something wrong with her. Then he was apprehensive when he found her talking to another woman he never met.

She was probably an Other, she came out of nowhere to tell Juliet where the people they were looking for were heading. And then she disappeared before his very eyes. Juliet told Jack that they were heading for the tempest. A supposed electrical station that powered the island, and Juliet refused to say anything else.

Jack's curiosity got the best of him. If there was something he hated the most was being out of the loop. When it happened he turned into paranoid being, fooling himself with conspiracy theories. He was always trying to deal with his compulsive questions, trying to leave them behind, but they always came back to haunt him.

Why was his father calling his ex-wife? Was he the man Sarah was seeing? Did his father steal Sarah from him? Was his father sleeping with Sarah?

Who was Kate? Why was she a fugitive? What had she done? Was she a murder? Why didn't she talk to him? Why couldn't she tell him the truth for once?

Who was the woman Juliet was talking to? Was she an Other? Was Juliet still working for the others? Was Juliet betraying him? Where was Juliet taking him? Was this an ambush?

As he tried to follow her through the jungle, he could hear whispers in the wind. As if they were telling him to let go. He could hear his father's voice, "let it go, Jack!" No, this time he wasn't going to let it go. He had to know!

"That woman, what was her name?" Jack asked trying to catch up to her.

"Harper," she answered.

"The two of you friends?"

"Not exactly. She was my therapist."

"You people had therapists?"

"It's very stressful being an Other, Jack." She answered joking.

"Seemed kinda hostile, even for a therapist!"

"I'm sure there are things from your past that you'd rather not talk about." Juliet said, fed up with his interrogation. The last thing she wanted was Jack to get suspicious of her. And she knew that was already happening.

"Yeah. You read them all in my file!" He said resentfully.

"Trust me, Jack. You don't wanna see my file!" She said firmly and that seemed to stop Jack from asking further questions.

They hiked through the jungle in silence, without even getting close to Daniel and Charlotte, Jack's paranoia was starting to take the best of him. They should have caught up to them by now. That was when they found Kate lying on the ground near a little stream.

Kate told them she was getting back from the barracks when she found Daniel and Charlotte. She knew something was wrong, she knew Jack would never let them go get batteries by themselves. That was when Kate asked to take a look on their packs and founds some gas masks. And then Charlotte hit Kate unconscious.

"Do you know where they were headed?" Kate asked as Jack took a look at the wound on her head.

"Some sort of... power station."

"Jack. They had gas masks!" Kate warned him, Jack looked around to find Juliet that had gone to get Kate some water.

"Juliet!" He called when he couldn't find her, but she didn't answer. "Juliet! Juliet!" He kept on shouting her name. "Juliet!" Jack was furious once again.

"She's gone, Jack!" Kate told him, Jack shook his head defeated. "It's ok, Juliet can take care of herself."

"That's not what I am worried about."

Jack got up, leaving Kate on the floor to try and find a trail, even though he had no idea what he was doing. Kate put herself up with all the strength she could muster. She was still a dizzy from the bump on her head as she kneeled near the stream to wash her face. After a few seconds of looking around she found Juliet's trail. Jack decided to follow her lead.

"She came through here." Kate said, "so did they, about half an hour ahead of her."

"What happened?" Jack asked a little annoyed.

"Sorry?" Kate didn't understand the question.

"At Locke's, why did you stay?"

"I stayed because I had to find something out."

"Are you gonna tell me," he insisted furious, he need someone to tell him the truth for once, "or are we gonna keep walking through the jungle like it doesn't matter?" Kate stopped and he followed suit, anxious for answers.

"I stayed to find out if the people on the freighter know who I am... if they knew that I'm a fugitive... that I'm wanted for murder."

"Do they?"

"Yeah, they know." She answered coldly. "We should keep moving. God knows where Juliet is."

Kate kept moving on, she didn't have patience to deal with Jack's problems right now. She was too consumed with her own troubles. She was glad that they had a crisis to solve, this way she could distance herself from her problems.

"I thought you stayed because of Sawyer," Jack said panting from the exercise, "you guys are an item now. I thought he had convinced you to stay." Kate didn't look at him, she just kept on walking.

"Well," she said after a while, "clearly you don't know me at all!"

"I really don't!" Jack's voice was filled with sarcasm. "I should have figured you don't care about anyone but yourself."

Kate stopped cold, and Jack did the same. He watched her back wishing she was facing him so he could see her reaction. Kate thought about what he told her, she didn't know what was wrong with her today. Were all men against her? Were all of them going to keep telling her harsh words? She turned around. He noticed the hurt look on her face.

"Follow the trail, Kate!" He ordered.

She took a moment to look at him, but he looked away like a coward. She wasn't on the mood to fight. She took a long breath and obeyed him. After a long hour of uncomfortable silence Kate finally reached their destination. In the distance she could see Juliet and Charlotte exiting a Dharma station, she acted quickly, she cocked her gun and ran toward them.

"Whoa, Kate, it's all right." Juliet said trying to calm Kate down, but Kate wasn't going to lower her defenses. "They're on our side."

"Our side, Juliet?" Kate shouted, her day had been such a mess that Kate just wanted to scream at the taller woman that she didn't even know if Juliet was on her side. "She just knocked me unconscious!" Kate said instead.

"Yeah. I'm very sorry about that, but I had no choice." Charlotte said in her defense. "Look, Daniel's inside securing the facility. If you come with me, I will be more than happy to explain exactly how we just saved your life."

"All right. Let's go." Kate agreed

"I'll take their word for it." Jack said and it made Kate even angrier with him, one minute he was cold and harsh, then Juliet says it's ok, and he believes her.

Kate refused to let jealousy take her over. She was done with both Jack and Sawyer, they were rude and didn't treat her with respect. She just wanted to get away from this island, even if it meant she would go back to be behind bars. She didn't care, anything was better than this.

She followed Charlotte into the station, that explained to her The Tempest was a chemical weapons development station, she told Kate that they had come to the island to disable the gases at the station to prevent Benjamin Linus from using the Tempest as a weapon of last resort against the Island's enemies.

"You okay?" Jack asked Juliet after they were left alone.

"He wanted me to kill them. Ben. He told me to kill both of them."

"How can he tell you anything?" Jack asked both confused and concerned.

"I don't know, but he knew how to get to me, and he knew where they were going and what they were doing." She explained. "Don't you understand? These people came here to wage war against Ben, and Ben's gonna win, Jack. And when he does, you don't want to be anywhere near me."

"Why not?" He asked tenderly

"Because he thinks that I'm his." Juliet said crying, the more she tried to escape from Ben, the closer he got to her. But this time she wasn't going to let the same thing happen again, she wasn't going to let Ben kill Jack out of spite like he did to Goodwin. She knew how dangerous Ben was, she had learned her lesson. "And he knows how I feel about you." Juliet confessed and her words warmed up his heart.

Jack was glad that after hours of agony, Juliet had said she cared about him. She didn't say she loved him, she just admitted she had feelings for him. And it was ok, because he didn't love her either, but he wanted to! He wanted to move on. He kissed her, and Juliet corresponded to him.

It was different from the first time they kissed, when he just wanted to calm her down. It was different from the second time, when she kissed him just to mark her territory, to prove to Kate that Jack wasn't hers to take. It was also different from last night's kiss. Different because it wasn't rushed, he wasn't hungry. It was delicate and sweet.

But at the same time, it had something similar, that Juliet had now realized was a constant on his every actions toward her. Something that always lingered, but she had never taken noticed until now. The kiss ended and she looked at him searching for her knew discovery.

"He knows where to find me." Jack said, and she believed him. But she also knew something else, something that would change things forever. She hugged him because she needed his support. She wanted to feel protected, safe. Even though she knew she wasn't loved.

----------------------

Not a day went by without trouble. In the beginning of the week Juliet had to deal with Sun, who wanted to move to the Barracks. Juliet couldn't let her, Sun needed to go out of the island, or else in three weeks from now she was going to die. Juliet didn't like the matters she had to go to in order to make sure Sun stayed. But if telling Jin about Sun's affair had made them stay, Juliet breathed easy even tough Sun barely addressed to her right now.

Then the freighter's doctor washed up on shore, dead with his throat slipped. And when Daniel and Charlotte made contact with the boat using Morse code, they lied. "Ok, they didn't exactly say what happened to the doctor, but your friends are fine, and the helicopter's coming back in the morning." Daniel had said, but Bernard to Daniel's surprise knew Morse code and corrected them. "He's lying. What the message said was, '_what are you talking about? The doctor is fine!_'"

The survivors of fligh 815 already knew these people weren't here to help them. But with each new day that passed they were getting more and more suspicious. And now, in the middle of a crisis, Jack begun to feel sick. Juliet walked toward Jack's tent. He had gone in to take some rest. She was worried about him.

"Ahh," Jack groaned while Juliet set beside him. "I hate being sick."

"What do you think it is?" She asked for the truth

"It's food poisoning."

"What makes you think that?"

"I've got some cramping, dehydrated, nausea."

"I respectfully disagree!" She said and he chuckled.

"Do you?"

"You want to lift your shirt up?" Jack didn't want her help. "If it's food poisoning, you got nothing to worry about." Jack agreed, and when her hand pressed on his stomach, instead of pleasure he felt pain. "It's your appendix, Jack. When did the pain start?"

"Yesterday."

"Has it ruptured?"

"Not yet."

"Well..." She said thinking about what to do next. "I guess we're just gonna have to take it out."

Jack stared at her amused by her crazy idea. Had she perhaps forgotten they were trapped in island somewhere near Fiji? But Juliet seemed to be serious, and soon she was organizing people in groups, to pick medical instruments at the medical station, and to create a sterile environment.

----------------------

Every day that he stayed at the Barracks Sawyer asked himself if he was doing the right thing. The better part of him told him that he was being foolish, that Locke had no idea what he was doing and that he should move back to the beach. The other part of him, the stubborn part, told him that Kate didn't deserve that he came back for her.

Then one day, when Sawyer and Hurley were playing horseshoes, he started to question Locke's good sense. He had set Ben free. The enemy was walking amongst them as if he was one of them. Worse yet, they were protecting him. Because as Ben had said, once the freighter people put their hands on Ben their orders were to kill everyone on the island.

Sawyer wanted to turn Ben over, and he knew he would regret agreeing with Locke for the rest of his life. And one day he did. The day started out nice, Claire was at her house taking a nap, Hurley was watching over Aaron and the two of them together with Locke were playing good old RISK when the phone rang. "Code 14-J" said an automated female voice. And the war finally begun.

Ben explained that it was a warning that one of Others had been captured by the people on the boat because someone had tripped a panic switch on the security fences. Which meant they needed to start preparing for war. Sawyer begun to move in autopilot. If the people on the boat were coming then he had to act fast, make sure everyone was safe. First thing on his mind were the crazy French chick and the kids, Alex and Karl, but Ben assured him he sent them somewhere safer the night before.

Then there was Claire, who was sleeping and had no idea what was about to happen. Sawyer still couldn't believe how he didn't get shot, because as her run for it machine gun fired from the jungle, he tried to seek refuge behind a picnic table, the white picket fences, and even a barbecue grill. The bullets kept impacting all around him and it was a miracle that none of them ever hit him.

Sawyer thought he had lost Claire when someone launched a rocket toward her house and it exploded before his eyes. He shouted her name as he ran towards her house, she was under a blanket and as he moved her she whispered Charlie's name. He was relieved she was alive, he picked her up and ran in the direction of Ben's house.

Once safe inside Sawyer got time to wonder, why would these people just start shooting? Why kill innocent people? Ben explained that Sawyer's friends were killed to make him angry so he would hand Ben over. Which Sawyer didn't think was a bad plan at all. Miles appeared on the porch, to Ben's surprise they opened the door to let him in.

Miles had come to give Ben a walkie-talkie and to warn him that they had his daughter, Alex, as hostage. Sawyer watched in silence as Ben became even more frightened as he picked up the radio.

"Mr. Linus," came the voice on the radio Ben was holding, "these are my terms: You're gonna step out the front door, put your hands above your head, and you're gonna walk straight to me. Once I have you in my custody, then I promise you that no one else in that house will be harmed."

"You and I both know that once you have me, there's nothing to stop you from killing everybody else on this island." Ben said

"What kind of guy do you think I am?" The man's voice on the radio had a tone of amusement to it.

"Martin Christopher Keamy, former first sergeant, United States Marine Corps, served with distinction from 1996 to 2001, but since then, you've worked with a number of mercenary organizations, specifically in Uganda. So I know exactly what kind of man you are, Mr. Keamy, and we can dispense with the formalities."

"Okay, Ben. You got it." Ben watched from the window as Keamy whistled to a man that pushed Alex forward. "Get down!" He pushed a very frightened Alex to her knees as Ben watched in shock. "Get your ass out here right now... or I'm gonna kill your daughter!"

"I'd like to present a counterproposal." Ben proposed after thinking.

"I'm listening."

"You and your friends... You turn around. Walk back to your helicopter. You fly away and forget you ever heard of this island."

"Tell your daddy good-bye," Keamy said angry handing Alex the radio.

"Dad..." Alex said between sobs, "they're serious. They killed Karl and my mother."

"Alex... I have this under control. Everything's gonna be okay." Ben promised

"Please, daddy! Just please, please." Alex begged for her life, Keamy took the radio back.

"You have ten seconds, Ben." Keamy said

"Okay, listen." Ben started

"Nine..." Keamy begun to count

"She's not my daughter." Ben thought that if they maybe realized she wasn't that important to him they would let her go.

"Eight..."

"I stole her as a baby from an insane woman." Ben insisted nervously. "She's a pawn, nothing more." Ben saw as Alex shook her head, her eyes pleaded him to help her. "She means nothing to me." Alex closed her eyes and tears came out, she was embracing herself for what she knew would come next. "I'm not coming out of this house. So if you want to kill her, go ahead and do it…" Ben stopped in mid sentence as he watched Keamy pulling the trigger on his gun.

The sound burned into Ben's soul as his daughter's lifeless body fell to the floor. Keamy stranded over her, his gun pointed down, he looked in the direction of Ben's house with pleasure on his smirk. Ben was dumbfounded. He could hear Sawyer and Locke discussing what step to take next and Keamy moved out into the jungle.

But Ben couldn't shake his feelings off. He was tired of always having to deal with everything, and look where it had taken him: Alone, with his daughter's blood all over his hands. And she was lying there, her face on the ground, but he could never take it back. He knew he had done the right thing. Had he surrendered to Keamy, he would have killed her anyway along with everyone on this island.

But it was Alex, she was not his flesh and bone, but she was his daughter nonetheless. He remembered when he had been sent on a mission to kill Rousseau, but when he got to her camp, the baby crying on the crib was all he could hear. He couldn't go through. He wasn't so cold as to shot a mother and a baby. So he let her live, warned her to stay away, that if she heard whispers she should run the other way.

And he took the baby with him. "_Non! Non! Rendez-moi mon bébé! __Non!" _Rousseau's voice still haunted his memory. She had called the baby Alex, and Ben had obeyed the mother's wish. But if Ben had done what Widmore had asked of him, then Alex would never have grown up to be the girl whose the only father she had ever known failed her completely. And Ben would never feel the way he was feeling right now!

It was all Widmore's fault. "He changed the rules!" Ben whispered as he left to go to the secret room and summon the smoke monster. He watched as Cerberus flashed lightning bolts, Keamy's people fired and shouted, but the monster simply roared deeply. The black smoke curled and twisted around in the jungle.

A man came running from the jungle toward them carrying a machine gun, he stopped his flight to kneel down and fired his weapon vainly into the smoke. The monster enveloped him knocking him to the ground, wrapping around him, and then finally dragging him as he screamed in terror.

Miles was the first to run for his life, Sawyer did the same taking with him Claire and Hurley. Ben told Locke to wait for him by the trees because he had to say goodbye to his daughter.

Before leaving Locke handed Ben one of the shotguns he was carrying. Ben was left alone to walk toward his current nightmare. He turned her over, she was already cold. The sounds of gunfire and the monster's roar were the background music as Ben kneeled down on the ground. He sobbed thinking his life had died along with his daughter. He kissed her blood streaked forehead, and thought nothing was worth this feeling. He much rather be dead.

----------------------

Jack was truly amazed by Juliet, a few days ago, his people were very suspicious of her, but now she was giving out orders and they obeyed her as if she had done this all her life. Maybe they were only helping her because they knew she was their only hope. She was the only one who could perform an appendectomy. But he could see that she was natural leader, way better than him.

When their plane crashed on the island, people had elected him the leader. At first he didn't like to be the one who everyone looked for when they needed guidance. Jack had problems of his own, and he hated to make decisions. But now that he was sick, Juliet stepped in, she didn't complain, and it was natural.

He was now lying in a makeshift operating table, while Juliet stood over him shaving his belly. It finally hit him, she was really going to do it. Fear started to take in as he realized he was going to have surgery.

"When was the last time you did this?" He asked

"An appendectomy or shaving a man's stomach?" They chuckled together, he was glad she found humor on their circumstances. "In my residency. I did a lot of them back then."

"Then you know the incision needs to be two inches lower than where you're shaving." He flirted, and she felt good that even though hell was breaking lose, Jack still had time for her.

"I'm just cleaning the area."

"Thank you," Jack thought for a moment, they were going to have a surgery at war conditions, he didn't feel good about this. "I wanna talk you through it."

"What?" Juliet asked confused as she looked at him.

"I don't want to be unconscious," he explained and she looked at him not sure what to think, "we can use the lidocaine to numb the area. And then I can watch the procedure, help you out."

"And, uh, how are you gonna watch flat on your back with my hand in your abdominal cavity?"

"We can use a mirror. Kate can hold it." Juliet tried not to show any reaction as he said Kate's name.

"If someone's going to be in there," Juliet said trying to control her voice, afraid that it would give any sign of how she felt about this, "shouldn't it be someone with medical experience? Bernard's a dentist."

"No, I want it to be Kate," he insisted.

"Okay," Juliet agreed and resumed to shave his stomach.

She didn't know what hurt her the most. The fact that he didn't believe in her, in her capability to perform such easy surgery. Or the fact that he wanted Kate to be by his side. Juliet tried hard not to hear the little voice on her head. The one that was always telling her that Jack loved Kate. That Jack was in a romantic relationship with Juliet just as a rebound thing.

She preferred to listen to the other voice, the one that said Jack would soon forget Kate and move on. Juliet concentrated on her task. She was used to it, to shutting off her feelings. She had done this her whole life. But it was hard to do it when he was so close to her and she was touching him so intimately.

She really tried not cry as the annoying voice on her mind kept yelling at her,_ 'I told you so!'_

----------------------

The seven survivors of Locke's group had split up in two after the shooting. Locke was still obsessed with finding the dammed cabin, and Ben was more than willing to help him look. Sawyer didn't want to be a part of that, he should have followed Kate to beach, but he stubbornly stayed behind.

But this time was going to be different. "You know what? I'm done with all this." Sawyer had said. "I never should have followed you wackos in the first place. I'm going back to the beach, and Claire and the kid are coming with me!" Miles had asked if he could come along, and of course, Sawyer would never leave Hurley behind. But as they had turned to leave Locke cocked his gun. "Have you lost your mind?" Sawyer had asked bewildered at Locke's action.

"Hugo stays with us!" Locke had said, he needed Hurley to find the mysterious cabin.

Sawyer wasn't happy, but Hurley was the one who decided to stay. So Sawyer lead them through the jungle after warning Locke not touch one hair of his curly head, or he would kill him.

The next day when they were making camp for the night Claire woke with a start. Her arms were empty, but when she had gone to sleep Aaron was lying protective on them. She looked around frenetically and found Christian playing with Aaron.

"Dad?!" Claire asked confused, what was he doing there?

"Hello, Kiddo!" He greeted her.

"What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to see my grandson," he explained, "he is getting big isn't he?" She watched from the floor as her father got up and walked away.

"Where are you going?" She asked desperately that he was taking her son away, after all, she had met Christian only once as an adult, and had faint memories of him from her childhood. She followed him into the jungle. "What are you doing?"

"Shush, he fell asleep!" Christian told her, he put Aaron down in the brunches of a tree that cradled the baby while he slept. "I need you to come with me, Claire!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Aaron is in danger, there's a war coming and I need your help." He told her seriously

"If my baby is in danger, then I have to take him out of this island."

"No, you need to come with me, you need to leave him behind!"

"Are you crazy?" Claire shouted, but it didn't wake Aaron. "I can't leave him alone. I'm supposed to raise him!"

"Aaron is better off without you." Christian told her putting his hands on her shoulder it seemed to have calmed her down. "There are a lot of people here who care about him and that will take good care of him. If you really love him, you will let him go!"

"Why do you need me?" She asked surprisingly calm.

"Because you're important, Claire!"

"Ok, Daddy, I will do anything to keep my baby safe." She agreed with a smile.

"Then we must leave, pumpkin." Christian said already walking away.

"Okay," Claire said, she kissed Aaron's forehead, "Bye-bye, baby!" She said then followed her father. "Where are we going, dad?" She asked when she finally caught up to him.

"We are going to a place you know as the cabin!"

----------------------

Juliet was stitching Jack up after surgery, she was glad to be left alone at last. After the pressure she wasn't surprised to have lost her temper. She wasn't happy that Jack wanted Kate to hold a mirror so he could guide Juliet through the surgery. She knew what she was doing, and it made her insecure that Jack didn't trust her.

Minutes after she made the incision Jack begun to lose control and Juliet fought hard to keep her calm. But she couldn't concentrate! Jack was in pain grunting and moving, she had trouble opening the spreader. Kate was crying desperately at her side, and all Juliet could hear were sniffs, sobs and groans of pain. And Bernard was moving way too slow.

Juliet couldn't even think with the chaos going on around, it seemed that nobody listened to her. She asked Jack to stop moving, she asked Bernard to knock him out, she asked Kate to leave. But neither one of them complied! Kate kept sobbing, Jack kept moving because he wanted to be awake, Bernard moved even slower with the chloroform, and Juliet still had trouble with the spreader.

She lost her temper, yelled at everyone! Once Jack finally closed his eyes, and Kate finally left, the surgery was quick and easy. Jack would have an ear full once he woke up. How dare he make her go through with all that trouble?

Juliet heard as Kate entered the tent where the surgery had just taken place. She was just finishing up with the stitches.

"He didn't lose that much blood." Juliet said, "I got the appendix out and put everything back where it belongs, I think." She chuckled at her own joke.

"So he's gonna be okay?" Kate asked

"He should be fine. We just have to talk him into resting."

"Good luck with that," Kate said and they both laughed.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you."

"Don't worry about it. You had enough going on."

Juliet was quiet for a while; there was something she had wanted to tell Kate since that morning when Jack asked for Kate to hold the mirror. But she never had the courage to actually go through with it, to finally assume defeat. After the surgery, the way Kate cried because of him. Juliet realized that she would be selfish, and would only keep holding on to something that there actually never was.

"You know, he kissed me." Juliet confessed

"What?" Kate was surprised by the change of subject.

"The other day, when you came back from the other side of the Island, Jack kissed me." Juliet noticed that Jack's breathing wasn't as even as it was minutes ago. But she wasn't backing down now.

"Oh!" Kate didn't know what to say.

"It was nice..." Juliet said whipping the blood of his stomach, "but it wasn't for me. It was for him. I'm pretty sure he was trying to prove something."

"Prove what?"

"That he doesn't love someone else." Juliet's words lingered in the air bringing different reactions to everyone in the room.

"Thank you, Juliet." Kate said, not sure why she was thanking her for. "Thank you for saving his life." She lied and left them alone.

Juliet watched her go, leaving emptiness behind. "I know you're awake." Juliet told Jack.

He blinked his eyes open. He had woken to the sound of them talking and when he realized he was the main subject he decided to play dead. Obviously, he should have guessed that Juliet would have realized he was faking sleep.

He wanted to say something, tell her that she was wrong, that he didn't love Kate, that she was being paranoid and jealous. That they were together now, and that was all that actually mattered. But he realized that there was no fooling Juliet. He could lie to himself, but he could never lie to her. She knew him too well.

He just looked at her, thinking that maybe she would see it in his eyes that he cared for her. She looked at him, with kind eyes, he loved those big blue eyes of hers. He wanted her to know that he liked her, and someday he would forget Kate, and they would be happy together and would laugh about this.

But she was also telling him something with her eyes. Telling him she wasn't willing to find out, that she didn't believe his feelings would ever change. She was telling him that she was sick of being someone's second choice. That for once in her life she deserved someone loved that her for whom she really was!

----------------------

Locke looked at the cabin in front of him, it was dark he couldn't believe he had finally found it. Ben and Hurley agreed to wait for him outside. As he walked up the porch steps he couldn't help but be reminded of his dream.

"_Hello there!" __The short blonde guy told him after he stopped chopping a tree. _

"_Who are you?" John asked him. _

"_I'm Horace," the man answered catching his breath._

"_And what are you doing out here?"_

"_Oh, building a place," the man answered, "a little getaway for me and the missus. No, I mean, sometimes you need a break from the D.I., you know? The Dharma Initiative?" The guy laughed at Locke dumbfounded expression. "I'm not making any sense, am I?" _

"_No." _

"_That's probably because I've been dead for 12 years!" Locke noticed the blood coming out of Horace's nose. The man turned his back on Locke, he pushed the tree and it fell on the floor with a loud thud. "Hello there." Horace said and John was surprised to see that the tree was backup, he seemed to be in a loop. "You gotta find me, John. You gotta find me. And when you do, you'll find him."_

Locke found Horace's body on the pitch that Ben had thrown all the bodies of the people he had killed on the hostile purge. The same pitch that Ben had shot Locke and left him out to die. The same pitch that Walt had come to him and told him he had work to do. On Horace's pocket John found the map to Jacob's cabin.

Locke lighted a lantern, he knew better then to use a flashlight. _"Jacob doesn't like technology,"_ Ben once told him. Every step Locke took was met with a creak. When he finally entered the cabin he found a man about his age sitting on a chair.

"Are you Jacob?" John asked.

"No. But I can speak on his behalf." He answered

"Well, who are you?"

"I'm Christian."

"You know why I'm here?" Locke asked.

"Yeah, sure. Do you?"

"I'm here... because I was chosen to be." Locke answered with proud.

"That's absolutely right." Christian agreed, they heard a creak, John used his lantern to light the other part of the room.

"Claire?" He asked confused after finding her sitting idly on a chair.

"Hi, John." She answered with a smile.

"What're you doing here?"

"Don't worry. I'm fine. I'm with him."

"Wh… Where's the baby?" Locke asked concerned.

"The baby's where he's supposed to be," Christian answered, "and that's not here. It's probably best that you don't tell anyone that you saw her."

"Why? Why is she…"

"We don't have time for this. The people from the boat are already on their way back, and once they get here, all of these questions won't matter one bit. So why don't you ask the one question that does matter?" Christian said with seriousness.

"How do I save the island?" Locke asked and Christian nodded his head.

"You'll have to move the island!" Christian answered then he and Claire disappeared in front of Locke's eyes.


	8. You’re Cold

**You're ****Cold**  
[Chapter 07 – Part 08 of 12]

**Author's Note: **Hey, so many people have reviewed the last chapter, I'm so happy, yay! And that wasn't even one of my favorite chapters. In fact, this is one of favorites. It's set mostly in season five. This chapter reveals some of the unanswered questions such as how and when did Suliet begun? But I haven't forgotten about the Oceanic Six. Anyway, this chapter is a treat for all Sulieteers out there.

**Chapter Summary:** John Locke thinks he is supposed to move the island, Jack realizes that he was never supposed to leave the island, but Juliet and Sawyer are just where they are supposed to be in the island.

----------------------

The people on the beach gathered around in a conference after the helicopter came back and dropped bag on the beach. Inside they had found another satellite phone that was tracking the e helicopter. They made Daniel call the chopper and overheard a conversation between Frank and Keamy. They heard they were planning to head for the Orchid. Since Juliet didn't know of any Orchid Station, Jack decided to track down the helicopter with Kate's help.

"You can't possibly be serious." Juliet scolded him. "You just had surgery, Jack."

"I'm gonna be fine."

"If your sutures rip, you're not gonna be fine."

"I can't just sit around waiting," Jack pointed out.

"Recovery is not 'sitting around'!"

"Look, I have to do this."

"Why?" She asked

"Because I promised those people that I would get them off this island." Juliet looked into his eyes, he had promised her he would take her off this island. But she didn't want him to die on the process.

"Don't bleed to death, Jack."

"I'll see ya in a couple hours."

Juliet was furious with Jack and his hero complex. Why did he felt like he needed to save everyone? He didn't need to save her, he didn't need to keep his promise. She just wanted him to realize how stubbornly he was acting. After almost two hours since he and Kate went off into the jungle Juliet noticed a Zodiac raft approaching.

"Hey! Over here!" Sayid said reaching the beach.

"Sayid!" Sun exclaimed going to help him, "where's Desmond?

"He's fine," Sayid said, "he's on the freighter. Listen, I'm going to start taking people back; six at a time. We have to go right now before the helicopter gets back to the boat."

"Why do we have to go to the boat before the chopper gets back?" Juliet asked helping him with the Zodiac.

"Because the men on that helicopter have every intention of killing us all," he said and then noticed the concerned look on Juliet's face. "What?"

"Jack and Kate just went running after it," she explained, her mind already thinking of a rescue plan.

"Ok, I'll go after them!" Sayid announced as more people gathered around them.

"I'll go with you." Juliet said to what Sayid shook his head. "You need me to find their trail!"

"No, you need to stay here and take care of everyone else," she started to argue, "Juliet, you have no idea what these men are capable of. Trust me, we need you to stay here." She nodded her head. "Do you promise you will stay and watch over them until everyone is off the island?" Juliet nodded her head again.

"Hey, Sayid, listen." Daniel said. "If you wanna run off into the jungle after the chopper, you should do that. But in the meantime, we need to get these people off this island."

"I won't be long. If I can catch up with Jack and Kate…"

"I can start ferrying people now." Daniel seemed to be in a rush to get to the freighter. "I can get them there safely. By the time you get back, I can have most of these people on our boat."

"I trust you know the bearing." Sayid asked and Daniel nodded his head. "You'd better get going."

"Thank you," Daniel said then turned to everyone, "all right, first group in the raft. We can fit six."

"Okay, okay, hold on." Juliet said as they started to decide who went first. "Sun is pregnant. You should go first."

"Sayid?" Kate called out, everyone turned to face her and Miles as they came from the jungle, Kate was carrying Aaron on her arms. "What are you doing here?" Kated asked said. "Jack thought that you…"

"I know what he thought. That's why I'm going after him. How far ahead is he?"

"I don't know." Kate answered a little confused. "He's… he's with Sawyer. I left them about an hour ago. Jack's got a sat phone, and they're headed for the helicopter. I can track them. Look, you are not gonna catch up to them unless I go with you."

"Let's go," Sayid said looking briefly at Juliet to tell her he got himself a tracker.

"Okay, Sun," Kate called her moving towards her.

"Where's Claire?" Sun's question echoed into Juliet's mind who watched interested as Kate gave Aaron to Sun.

"Get Aaron on the boat, okay?" Kate said

"What?" Sun was confused.

"It's all right. Just... I'll see you there." Kate ran up the reach Sayid. "Just keep him safe!"

That moment Juliet felt weak. Claire was missing, just like he said she would. He was right about everything. Juliet needed to make sure everyone got off the island as soon as possible, she helped Daniel move the Zodiac into the water.

----------------------

Once Jack and Sawyer tracked the helicopter Frank told them that Keamy and his army went to a Dharma station called the Orchid, a supposed greenhouse, because they knew they would find Ben there. He also said that once Keamy put his hands on Ben, he would do nothing more than kill whoever else was with him. That was when Sawyer informed Jack that Hurley was stupid enough to stay behind with Colonel Kurtz and Captain Bunny Killer. And that was why they went off into the jungle again in search of the greenhouse.

For their sake, Keamy was long gone once they arrived at orchid, Ben had surrendered himself so that John could get inside the station and finally move the island. Or so Hurley had told them. How does one move an island? Jack went to confront John about his new unrealistic plan. John was looking around like crazy for something that probably didn't even exist.

"What are you doing in here?" Jack asked

"There's a… a Dharma Station below us, and, um, I'm looking for a way to get in." Locke explained.

"Get in and do what?" Jack was furious about how crazy the man in front of him was.

"Hugo, James, would you mind if I spoke to Jack alone?"

"Don't bother. We just came back for Hurley. Let's go!" They start to leave, but Hurley is a little reluctant about leaving Locke behind.

"Jack, you need to hear what I have to say…"

"What I need to do is to walk back to the chopper," Jack spoke forcefully as he turned back to face him, "get on it, and get the rest of our people off this island."

"Uh, dude," Hurley said, "probably not the best idea right now. Those Rambo guys are taking Ben to that helicopter. He surrendered himself to them about an hour ago."

"Now why the hell would he do that?" Jack asked accusingly thinking that Ben's surrender had something to do with Locke's plan.

"Calm down, let's talk and I'll explain everything." Jack didn't answer he just looked him in the eyes breathing hard with anger.

"Dudes, we'll be over there." Hurley said, he and Sawyer left Jack and Locke to talk things over.

"What did you wanna talk to me about, John?" Jack asked after they were left alone.

"I want you to reconsider leaving the island, Jack. I would like you to stay."

"You'd like me to stay?" Jack asked ironically.

"Yeah, that's right." Jack chuckled at his seriousness.

"You threw a knife into the back of an unarmed woman. You led half of our people across the island and got most of them killed." Jack accused him.

"Well, Jack, you put a gun to my head and you pulled the trigger. I was hoping we could let bygones be bygones."

"Well, I'll tell you what. You stay here in your little greenhouse, but the rest of us are going home."

"But you're not supposed to go home!" Locke insisted

"And what am I supposed to do?" Jack was tired of him, of his constant crazy talks about destiny, leap of faith. This time Jack wasn't going to listen to him. "Oh, I think I remember. What was it that you said on the way out to the hatch, that crashing here was our destiny?"

"You know, Jack. You know that you're here for a reason. You know it. And if you leave this place, that knowledge is gonna eat you alive from the inside out... until you decide to come back."

"Good-bye, John." Jack didn't want to hear his voice anymore.

"You're gonna have to lie."

"Excuse me?" Jack stopped leaving.

"If you have to go, then you have to lie about everything... Everything that happened since we got to the island it's the only way to protect it."

Jack sighed, "it's an island, John. No one needs to protect it!"

"It's not an island!" Locke insisted. "It's a place where miracles happen. And… and… if you… if you don't believe that, Jack, if you can't believe that, just wait until you see what I'm about to do."

"There's no such thing as miracles!"

"Well...we'll just have to see which one of us is right."

"Am I interrupting?" Ben said bringing the men out of their fight. Jack cocked a gun and pointed it at him. "Nice to see you, too, Jack." Ben ignored Jack's threat and walked right past them. "Couldn't find the Anthuriums, could you?" He asked John.

"I don't know what they look like." Locke defended himself as Ben shook a potted flower, then reached underneath a shelf and activated a switch. They heard metal clacking and a door creaking then a secret elevator was finally exposed.

"What are you doing?" Jack asked when curiosity took over him.

"Didn't you tell him?" Ben asked Locke

"I tried!"

"Sayid and Kate are waiting for you at the helicopter." Ben informed Jack "I understand that your people from the beach are being brought to the freighter even as we speak."

"What?"

"I'd love to fill you in on everything you missed, Jack, but you, Hugo, James, you need to get moving. If I were you, I'd want to be on that boat within the hour. Good-bye, Jack." Ben turned to Locke, "let's go?"

"Lie to them, Jack." Locke insisted one last time. "If you do it half as well as you lie to yourself, they'll believe you."

Jack stared furiously at them for a moment. He wanted to bring sense into Locke's head, but decided he better get off this island now. He would never have to listen to him anymore.

----------------------

Sawyer was trying hard not to show that he was hurt. He had flirted with Kate, but she had completely ignored him. He had watched as she touched Jack's stomach, checking to see his suture, but at the same time Sawyer couldn't shake off the little voice inside his head that told him she was provoking him. After the things he said to her, he didn't blame her, but it still hurt.

His anger went away the minute the helicopter begun to hover over the island. He looked at her and her face melt his heart. He didn't understand her! Why was she so eager to go back to a world where she would be taken into custody? But she was happy, and he was happy for her, he would anything for her.

But her happiness didn't last very long, the chopper was losing fuel, the tank was pierced by a bullet during the shooting that set Ben Linus free. Frank told everyone to toss out anything that wasn't bolted down.

"Now what?" Jack asked after there was anything else to throw away. "Is that enough? Can we make it?!"

"I'd feel a hell of a lot better if we were a few hundred pounds lighter!" Frank said as Sawyer watched Hurley's guilty expression, he felt sorry for him. "Well, if we don't make it, we're still close enough to ditch it on the beach."

"Hey! Do not go back to the island!" Jack ordered

"We might not have a choice, Doc." Sawyer looked out of the chopper at Frank's words. He would do anything for Kate, he wanted her to be happy, and he knew she was better off without him. If he jumped off the helicopter, he would save the lives of his closest friends.

"Hey..." Sawyer came closer to Kate's ears and whispered, "I have a daughter in Albuquerque, find her, and tell her I'm sorry!"

"Why are you telling me this?" Kate asked rhetorically knowing the answer too well.

He kissed her one last time, for his sake more than hers. "Just do it, Freckles!" He said and jumped off the chopper.

"Sawyer!" He could hear her shouting his name as he fell.

He finally hit the water and swam up to the surface, he looked up to the sky and the helicopter had already moved on. He took a minute to think about his choice. Like he had told Kate earlier that week, there was nothing for him back at the real world. He would miss Kate, but he was glad he could give this to her. He breathed a couple of times and then swam back to the beach.

For a good half an hour only water surrounded him, and even exhausted he kept on swimming, the coast was like a mirage when he finally reached the shore. He had lost his shirt and shoes somewhere on the ocean in order to glide faster through the water. As he pushed himself up on the sand his jeans clung to him like solid metal.

The beach was mostly deserted, except for Juliet. He looked on her direction realizing it was the first time he had seen her in weeks. She looked at him with something in her eyes, confusion and sadness he couldn't tell exactly. He was amazed to see any signs of emotion showing in her cold blue eyes, but they stood out like fire in the night.

"Nice day for a swim," he joked as he walked in her direction.

"What are you doing here?" She asked and the sadness on her eyes were heart breaking.

"Decided to take a dip," he explained lying down on the floor in front of her thankful for the long waited rest. He noticed a Dharma's flavored rum on the floor next to her. "Whatcha celebrating?"

"I'm not celebrating," she answered her eyes were flicking, he followed her gaze out into the sea and in the distance a plume of black smoke wafted.

"Is that our boat?" He asked when his heart seemed to have stopped beating.

"It was," she answered with her voice cracking.

Sawyer looked into the horizon; the black smoke seemed to be burning his soul. They were heading for the boat. And Sawyer didn't see the helicopter anywhere. He had only felt like that once on his life, the day he saw his mother's eye wide open yet gleaming lifelessly. Kate had been on that chopper, and if Sawyer hadn't jumped off, they would have to come back, and Kate would have been alive. Sawyer hated irony!

All he could hear was Juliet's disturbed breathing. Sawyer knew they were now on the same boat, Jack died along with Kate, and he knew she had the hots for the doctor. It really was ironic, that Jack and Kate were using Juliet and Sawyer in order to forget each other and now they were burning to death leaving two broken hearts behind. Forever forgotten!

Sawyer sat beside her, drinking away his pain along with Juliet. They didn't have much time to grief when the brightest light started to burn into their pupils. They both turned to look into the sky with both curiosity and fear. The sky had turned purple once before when Desmond exploded the hatch. And they had no idea what was wrong now.

"What the hell was that?" Sawyer asked when the flash of light finally died down.

"I don't know," she answered surprised, Sawyer looked into the horizon, but found nothing there.

"Where's the freighter?" He asked

"Maybe it went down."

"Unh-unh. No way. A minute ago, that boat was coughing black smoke. Now there's just nothing?"

"What about the helicopter?" She asked

"It was heading for that boat."

"Rose!" They heard Bernard scream as he stumbled out of the jungle. "Rose!"

"Bernard!" Juliet called his name as she approached him.

"Rose! Have you seen Rose?!"

"No," Juliet answered tenderly and to Bernard's relief Rose came out of the jungle.

"Oh, my God! Bernard!"

"Rose! Where were you?" He asked her taking her on an embrace.

"I was over..." Rose was panting, "by the church. Wh… what was that sound? What was that light?"

"I don't know," Bernard answered.

"Just calm down," Sawyer said trying to take control of the situation, "there's no need to panic, all right? We'll just go back to camp and…"

"Calm down?" Bernard mimicked him sarcastically. "No need to panic? We can't go back to the camp."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Sawyer asked

"There is no camp," Bernard explained and led everyone back to where the beach camp used to be, the rest of the survivors walked around in shock, but the tents were completely gone. There was only jungle all around. "The… the sky lit up, and… and then this. The… the kitchen? Gone. And… and all the tents, all the food and water... gone. Well, everything but us. All of it. It's gone!"

Juliet looked around terrified! She couldn't believe what she was seeing with her eyes. It really was happening just like he said it would. Juliet feared what would happen next, when it would happen.

"It's not gone!" Daniel announced approaching with the Zodiac's passengers of the second trip.

"Daniel!" Charlotte called his named relieved, they hugged. "I thought you were on the freighter."

"No, we never made it," he explained, "we were on our way out there when it happened."

"What do you mean, the camp's not gone?" Sawyer asked annoyed at the skinny man. "Who the hell are you anyway?"

"That's Dan." Miles introduced him. "He's our physicist."

"Listen, we have no time." Daniel begun, "I need you to take me to something man-made, something that was built, any kind of a landmark."

"There's a Dharma station 15 minutes from here." Juliet told him clinging to the hope that Daniel knew what he was talking about and that he could save them all.

"You mean the hatch?" Sawyer asked confused. "The one we blew up?"

"That's perfect." Daniel said. "We should get moving before it happens again, okay?

"Before what happens again?" Sawyer hated that Daniel wasn't explaining what was happening. "And why is our camp gone?

"Your camp isn't gone. It hasn't been built yet!" His sentence lingered in the air as they walked into the jungle to find the hatch.

----------------------

**Los Angeles - 2005**

Jack poured vodka into a glass and drank it in one gulp. The glass hit the kitchen counter with a loud thud and he poured more vodka into the glass. He could hear Hurley's voice in his mind, _'Locke, he moved the island!'_ Jack drank another glass of vodka, and poured some more as he shouted "No he didn't!" Locke was a crazy man, and he didn't want anybody to believe him, but Hurley still insisted. _'Oh, really? 'Cause... one minute it was there, and the next it was gone, so... unless we, like, overlooked it, Dude, that's exactly what he did."_

Jack looked at the full glass of vodka on his hand, he wanted it to wash away his feelings, but as the alcohol traveled down his throat it did nothing but take his balance away. Jack moved to the couch bringing the vodka bottle with him forgetting the glass on the sink. He took a long sip and sighed satisfied.

A picture of his father rested on the coffee table. Christian was smirking at him and Jack chuckled into the darkness. "We are not that different after all, huh, Dad?" Jack took another sip, the bottle was half empty now.

Jack couldn't believe that he had actually listened to Locke. After they had been rescued Jack lied about everything, he came up with a cock and bull story about the six of them, Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sayid, Sun and little Aaron, being the only survivors of the crash. He said that they had lived for 103 days on an island called Membata, and that Kate had given birth to Aaron on the island thus earning her freedom until the duration of her trial.

Everything seemed to be working out fine. It was Kate's idea to keep Aaron for herself, she said she had lost all those people and she didn't want to lose him too. Jack didn't see why not let her keep Aaron, when Claire was missing. Even Sun had agreed to lie, she told the world that her husband had never made it off the plane.

That was when Jack's problem begun, he was taken over by guilty. When the helicopter arrived the freighter Desmond told them that it was loaded with C4 and they needed to get the hell away from there as soon as possible. They moved quickly, filling the tank up with gas which should have given them enough time to go back to the island. Everyone was boarding the chopper except for Kate that was running towards the inside of the boat. _'Jin is still inside!'_ he heard Kate's voice in his head.

Jack didn't care if Jin was still inside, he wasn't leaving without Kate, they boarded the helicopter and took off in time to see Jin running in their direction, screaming something in Korean. The boat exploded behind them and Jack could still hear Sun screaming desperately for her dead husband. Jack knew she blamed him!

And then the island disappeared in front of their very eyes. And they had to jump off the helicopter because there was no land in sight. Later into that night they were found by a searcher, Penny's boat. Desmond's Penny who had been looking for him since he went missing three years ago.

Then the lie begun!

And when Claire's mother showed up at his father's funeral, it overwhelmed him. She told Jack how ironic it was, that she was Claire's mother and that Jack never even knew he had a half sister, and that she was on the same plane as he was. Jack was cornered, if she was Claire's mom, she had a right to know about her grandson, but he couldn't do it to Kate. Kate already loved Aaron as her own son, he owned it to Kate after everything he made her go through.

And here Jack was, alone at his house, haunted by the ghosts of the people he left behind, tormented by the lies he had created. He was off the island, what he tried so hard to do, but at the same time, he wanted to be back. Jack chuckled again, he banged the bottle lightly at frame of his father's picture as if toasting.

"To the Red Sox," Jack said and took a sip, "because they'll never win the dam series!" And in the dark of the room Jack made a resolution. He would never speak to any of them. Not even Kate. Jack was a nut job, and these people didn't deserve him.

----------------------

**Island in the ****70's**

Crisis had been averted and things seemed to be at easy once again. Richard had taken Paul's body and James was now having a serious conversation with Horace, the Dharma Initiative apparent leader. Miles and Daniel were swapping time travel theories, while Juliet and Jin stared at them in silence.

She remembered when they found Jin wondering in the jungle, he had probably been thrown into the water with the blast when the freighter exploded. She smiled remembering James trying to explain to Jin that every time it flashed they moved through time. She also remembered Charlotte desperately screaming "this place is death" minutes before she died.

Was Charlotte right? Was this place death?! Juliet felt the need to be alone. She excused herself and walked out of the familiar house.

The pathways on the Barracks were empty as people were afraid to go out after the alarm first sounded that night. Juliet looked around, the place looked the same, yet 30 years younger. It was the strangest feeling, she had been living here for the past three years and yet she felt like she had just arrived.

The night was different on the seventies, the air was lighter. Juliet walked aimless and was intrigued by where fate had brought her. She was standing few feet away from the submarine dock, the same submarine that would one day bring her to the island. The same submarine that Locke was going to explode, making it impossible for her to go home and be forever trapped on the island. At least that was what Ben had thought.

The submarine was leaving tomorrow morning, and she would finally be free. She thought about what Ben had once told her, that it was her fate to be there. Unfortunately Ben had neglected Juliet's freewill. Tomorrow she would board the submarine and would never return.

She sat on the edge of the dock, feeling the chilly night breeze on her cheeks. She once used to hear moaning whispers on the wind, but this was also different now, if she listened closely she could hear the wind singing happily. Juliet felt relieved and contented. She still couldn't believe that it was over. She thought about what had happened for the last 48 hours.

After Ben turned the wheel on the Orchid Station they started to flash back and forth in time. One minute the sun was setting, the other it was dawning. They've been on the fifties, were the rest of their people got killed by the island's natives. Juliet reminded with a smile how good it felt when James had held her hand when they were fleeing. It felt like electricity was running through them, she shook her head embarrassed, she sounded like a silly schoolgirl.

They had been captured by young Charles Widmore, Ben's future archenemy, and he had threatened to cut off Juliet's hand. She shrugged at the memory, she had no doubts they would do it, thank God John Locke appeared just in time to save her.

Who would have guessed that John Locke would be their hero? When the flashes begun to get closer together, and their headaches were getting worse each time they moved. John dived into the well at the Orchid and turned the wheel once again, that brought a stop to the flashes, trapping them in the seventies.

They found Amy being attacked by two of the island's natives. James went to help her and when one of them pointed a weapon at him Juliet shot him dead, she got James back, just like she promised she would. James shot the other one, and that was their ticket off the island.

"I bought us two weeks." She heard James voice behind her, she wanted to be alone, but his presence didn't bother her. "Horace said we can wait for the next sub. Any luck, Locke'll be back by then." He sat down on some crates next to her.

"And then what?" She asked

"What do you mean, 'Then what'?"

She looked up at him, "Locke said he was leaving to save us. The flashes have stopped. They're over. No more bloody noses. We're already saved. That sub behind you brought me here. I've been trying to get off of this island for more than three years, and now I've got my chance." He looked at her heartbroken. "I'm going to leave." She stated and he sighed.

"You do realize it's 1974, that whatever it is you think you're going back to... it don't exist yet."

"It's not a reason not to go," she said whipping her face.

"Well, what about me?" He asked his voice sounded a little more insecure than he liked to admit. "You really gonna leave me here with the mad scientist and Mr. 'I Speak to Dead People'?" Juliet smiled at him. "And Jin, who's a hell of a nice guy, but not exactly the greatest conversationalist."

"You'll be fine," she said still smiling.

"Maybe... but who's gonna get my back?" She looked up at him amazed by his sincerity, he smiled self-consciously sighing. "Come on. Just give me two weeks, that's all I'm asking. Two weeks." He insisted pleading.

"All right," she said and he smiled, "two weeks." She flashed him the most beautiful smile he ever seen. She looked away and looked out into the sea. He never realized before how beautiful Juliet actually was.

"So tell me, Goldilocks," Sawyer said after moments of silence, "why are you out here alone, staring out into the sea?"

"I was just thinking," she answered, "that it's January of 1974, my birthday is in two months, and I don't know if I'm going to be 34 or 4 years old."

"I guess you're going to be both!" He commented. "I know how you're feeling, two years from now my father is going to kill my mother and then kill himself in front of me. And there ain't nothing I can do about it. That's why I say, time travel is a bitch!"

Juliet chuckled, she got up on her feet and turned to leave. "Come on, Dimples," she said, "we better head back."

"What? You nicknaming me now?" He asked surprised, walking behind her.

She looked over her shoulder smirking at him. "Why? You think you're the only one allowed to do it?"

"No, I'm actually impressed. All most people can come up with is Cowboy or Hillbilly."

"I'm not most people, James!" She said with her back to him. He was glad she couldn't see the amazed look on his face.

"You're defiantly not most people!" He whispered and she smiled. "But dimples, that's a chick's nickname!"

"I don't know, James, I think it fits…" He chuckled and they walked back in silence.

----------------------

**Los Angeles - 200****6**

The trail was wearing Kate off, now that Melissa had asked for Kate to remain into custody she couldn't even go home to hold Aaron in her arms. She missed the two year old toddler so much she wished she was home to tuck him in.

The day had been horrible, Duncan, her lawyer, wanted to use Aaron as a witness, to make the case about her character, about who she was, not about what she didn't do. But since she refused to involve her son into this, Duncan then used the next best thing. Jack Shephard.

Kate had to sat there listening to him telling lies after lies, because that was what he had done ever since they became the oceanic six. He told them she was hero, and then when Melissa asked him if he loved Ms. Austen, he simply said that he didn't anymore.

She was about to cry when she walked into a conference room. Duncan had said someone needed to talk to her. Kate was dumbfounded when she found out the person was her mother. Diane wheeled into the room after her daughter.

"I worked it out so you two could have a few minutes of privacy." Duncan said

"I don't need any privacy." Kate protested

"You need to talk to her, Kate. I'll be outside."

"Hello, Katherine." Her mother greeted and Kate simply ignored, it seemed like ages since the last time she saw her face. "Was it true, what he said? Dr. Shephard. That you're a hero." Kate kept quiet. "Why won't you talk to me?"

"Because, mom, the last time I tried to talk to you, when you got sick? When I risked my life to see you, you screamed for help and called the police!" Kate answered with altered voice.

"Please. I don't want to fight with you, Katherine." Diane pleaded quietly.

"Why are you here?"

"Because I... It all changed, when I thought you were dead. My doctors have given me six months to live for the last four years. I don't know how long I'm going to last. So I came here to tell you that I don't want to testify against you."

"Then don't," Kate said coldly.

"I want to see my grandson."

Kate couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You came here to make a deal?" Kate asked indignant.

"I just want to meet him." Diane begged.

"I don't want you anywhere near him!"

"You're cold, Katherine!" Diane said, her eyes becoming red. "I have the right to see him!"

"You know, mom, you once told me that whatever I did I did for me." Kate stopped, thinking of whether or not to go on. "And you are right, I did it. Because after years of hearing Wayne beating you, and years of him paying me visits at night when you weren't home," her voice cracked at the memories, "I finally discovered that he was my real father." She breathed heavily, "I just couldn't bear the thought that he was a part of me. So I did it for me, because that's what you taught me."

"I don't understand you," Diane was hurt by her daughter's cold words.

"You knew that Wayne was dangerous, what made you think that he wouldn't do it to me what he did to you?" Kate was fighting to hold back her tears, "you chose him, because you loved him, you did it for you! And when Sam wanted to take me you didn't let him. You should have let me go, you shouldn't have taken me to sink with you! You only care about yourself."

"That's not true I…" Diane protested insulted, but Kate cut her in mid sentence.

"Yes, it is!" Kate tried hard not to shout, "I'm a mother now, and I don't understand how you could ever choose a penis over your _own_ daughter!" Kate broke down and cried.

"Katherine," Diane put her hand on Kate's arms.

"But I've grown up now, mom. And I would never do something against my son just to help myself. So, no deal, mom. I will rot in prison, but you ain't ever getting near him. I don't want you to hurt him like you hurt me!" She opened the door, "we're done here!" She told Duncan.

----------------------

**Island in the ****70's**

"Hey," Juliet answered her door to find James standing on her porch.

"Hey, Blondie, can I come in?" He sounded excited. She opened her door wider to let him in.

"Did you pack your things?" She asked him as they stood in the living room.

"Yeah, about that…" He fidgeted uncomfortably, reaching in the back of his neck massaging his muscle in a clear nervous manner.

"Did you buy us another two weeks?" She asked smiling, crossing her arms.

"Well, I actually bought us permanently stay." He watched the emotions play slightly on her face. "Horace came to me offering a job on security, and I took it. He said he can get jobs for all of us. Daniel is still leaving tomorrow, Jin and Miles are going to work on security with me, and I was wondering where you stand?"

She sighed bringing her right hand to her mouth trying to shield her emotions inside. She was clearly torn in two. If she went away, she would be free of Ben forever. But as James once pointed out, there was nothing for her in 1974, not even a name or a license to practice the only thing she knew how to do.

A voice inside her kept telling her that if she left she would never see James again. Juliet wasn't sure why the thought bothered her so much, but she wasn't ready to let him go. And yet if she stayed, she was afraid of what would eventually happen to her.

"You can work on the medical station!" James insisted, "look, Juliet, I'm gonna be honest with you, I want you to stay!"

"Why?" She asked annoyed, why did he care so much? Why was he making this decision even harder for her?

"Because you make me a better person!" He confessed and she stared at him confused. "Not that you even try, but when you are around, you inspire me or something. And it makes me want to be a better man." He reached out to hold her hands in his. "Will you stay with me, please?! I need you…" He whispered his last sentence.

"Ok," he smiled still holding her hands, "but I don't want to work as a doctor. Doctor Burke died in 2004."

"Fine by me, Sawyer died back then too!"

----------------------

**Los Angeles - 2007**

Jack held Kate in his arms as they sat on her porch steps watching three year old Aaron playing in the front lawn, he was giggling as he spun in place, he finally lost his balance and fell on the grass satisfied. Jack chuckled at him and kissed the back of Kate's head, the smell of coconut in her hair sent pleasure down his spine.

He was glad about how things turned out in the end. After Kate's mother refused to testify against her, and as she was the only witness, Kate made a deal with the prosecutor and she was now on ten year's probation. He was glad that she was free, and when he asked her out after the end of her trial, she told him they could never be an item if Jack didn't want to be around Aaron.

He had his reason for not wanting to see him. He was afraid the boy would someday blame him for everything that happened. But Jack was tired of pretending, he still loved Kate, and he wanted to be with someone whom he didn't have to lie to. So he stopped by her house one day, he felt awkward around Aaron, but it wasn't the end of the word.

Then Jack started to call Kate more often, he asked her out again, she brought Aaron along and it was actually fun. Jack started to warm up to the toddler, Aaron was winning Jack's heart each time he saw them. Now that he and Kate were living together, as hard as Jack tried to pretend nothing was happening. Aaron had already become his son.

"Jack, me like when you spin!" Aaron pleaded and Jack smiled.

Jack walked over to the little blonde boy. He picked him up, and spun him around. The boy laughed hysterically.

----------------------

**Island in the ****70's**

The days on the Dharma Initiative were passing fast, even though it seemed like an eternity ago since they last flashed into time and ended up in 1974. At first Juliet didn't understand why she agreed to stay on the island. But now, only six months later, this was her life. The island was her home.

She made friends here; and being an ex Other, Hostile, or whatever their name really was; Juliet would never imagine she would like being part of the Dharma Initiative. But they had opened their arms for her. And she was glad she had stayed. The ones left behind had stuck together, except for Daniel that went to away on the second sub.

They all had jobs, the men worked on security while she worked on the motor pool. If when she was a child someone asked what she would like to be when she grew up, she would never have said she wanted to be a mechanic. But she actually enjoyed it; after three years of patients dying on her hands, this was a nice retirement, as James called it.

James was one of the reasons life on the DI was like a living paradise, she didn't know when they had gotten so close, but somewhere between now and then she realized she didn't know what would have been of her if he hadn't jumped off the chopper.

He would come over to her house to play backgammon, or to just simply talk. They talked about almost everything, especially about the books they read. They had become truly best friends.

And James was the reason she was awake at two in the morning, pacing her house, looking outside her window for any sign of him. He and Jin were off on a mission since that afternoon, and she hadn't seen him since. She had gone to Horace who assured her it was under control. But she only breathed easily when she heard him pulling up the blue van in front of his house.

Juliet didn't care what time it was, she marched up to his house and let herself in. She found him on the bathroom going through the medicine cabinet. He had taken off the top of his jumpsuit, and blood came out on his arms.

"What happened?" She asked her heart in her throat.

"It's just a scratch!" He told her, angry that she was awake.

"Let me take a look at this," she insisted, taking his arms on her hands, "it's a bullet scratch."

"It's nothing, what are you still doing up, Grease Monkey?" He asked annoyed.

"I was worried about you!" She answered coldly, looking in the cabinet for the first aid kit. "Sit," she ordered, "I'll take care of it."

"I thought you were retired." He said sitting on the toilet seat, she started to work on his wound. "Dammit, woman, that hurts!"

"Quit being a baby and tell me what happened." She asked angry

"There was a shooting at the orchid site, your people didn't like the new arrangement."

"They are not my people!" She answered seriously, she finished his bandages. "You're set."

"Good, now scram!" He said putting the first aid kit back into the cabinet. "I better hit the shower, I stink." For the first time that day she smiled.

She left the bathroom, closing the door behind her. But she didn't go very far, there was no way she was going to get any sleep that night, and even if she tried, she didn't want to leave him alone.

She sat on his couch on the living room, left alone with her thoughts she finally realized how close she came of losing him. When Goodwin died Juliet was devastated, but this time it was different. If James had died, she didn't know what would have been of her. She didn't know what life would have been without him.

She felt the tears welling up on her eyes, she had never felt like this before. She was afraid, afraid of what could have been. She should have been relieved, but she wasn't. One salty tear rolled out into her face, followed by many others. She didn't know how long she sat there on his living room just crying.

"What are you doing here?" He asked, she turned to face him, he was wearing clean clothes and his hair was wet. The bandage on his arm was a little damp, a reminder of what almost happened. "Are you crying?"

"I… I…" She stuttered getting to her feet and whipping her face. "I just wanted to make sure you were alright."

"Blondie, I have been shot in the shoulder and pulled the bullet out with my bare hands. Trust me this is nothing!" He said and she laughed glad that he was fine. She was finally relieved, but the tears she tried to clean begun to fall all over again. She hugged him, burying her face on his chest afraid to let go. He was stunned, but the feeling of being so close to her was enticing, he held her, her back arched with each new sob. "What's wrong?" He asked concerned.

"You could have died…" she managed to say.

"Why do you care so much?" He asked tenderly.

"Because I love you, James." The words escaped her mouth, but she didn't care that the truth was out.

He pulled her away just enough to cup her face and bring her to look at him. They stared into each other, gazing into their souls. "I love you too!" He said kissing her on the lips. James had read it on the books, but he had never felt it before. The world seemed to spin around him while he felt butterflies on his stomach.

It happened too fast yet it seemed to last for an eternity. One minute they were kissing for the first time, the other they were laying on the couch. Pleasure ran through them, as their bodies moved automatically, as if they had done it before, maybe on another life. His body recognized hers, happy to have finally found her, hungry because it had waited for her forever. They fit into each other.

"What are we doing?" She asked pushing herself away from him.

"What?" He asked panting, frustrated by the loss of contact. "Your parents never talked to you about the birds and the bees?" He joked sarcastically, "and here I was thinking you used to be a fertility doctor."

"You think I'm just going to go at it like rabbits and that's it?" She pulled her hair away from her face because her cheeks were burning.

"I'm sorry," he said pushing himself up into a sitting position, "I thought you wanted this too!"

"I do, it's just that…" She looked at her hands to avoid his gaze, "I don't do one night stands."

"Right, and since you've read my file, you think I'm gonna get ya in the sack and I'm not even gonna call ya! Juliet, I you live two houses down the street."

"It's not just that, I… It has to mean something to me!"

"You think you mean nothing to me?" He asked a little mad at her insinuation, "Juliet, I love you." She gasped at his words, even though he had said it before it only got better, "I love the person you are, I love how strong you are, how you're sweet and calm, how you deal with difficult situations. This is not just hormones, I feel for you, I want you!"

"I love you too, James. I love it that you try to protect me even though I don't need protecting. I love how smart and intelligent you are. I love it that you care about people even when you don't want them to think you do."

"Then what's the matter? What more do you want?"

"Do you still love her?" She asked, he had no idea who she was talking about. She looked at him frustrated and he finally remembered her. James hadn't thought of Kate in a long time. He didn't even remember her face.

"No, Juliet, I love you, just you, all of you!" He saw a tear on her eye and reach out to touch her face, bringing her to kiss him. She didn't fight him this time, he was the one to stop them. "When you read my file what did you think of me?" He asked looking deeply into her eyes. "I want the truth!"

"I thought you were a lowlife conman, selfish and a hypocrite." She confessed not bothering to patronize him, he asked for the truth. "Because you spent your whole dam life looking for the man who wrecked your family. You judged him, and yet you did the same thing." James breathed heavily he was trying not to cry.

"And when you met me in person, what did you think of me?" His voice was a little altered.

"I thought you were a redneck with a temper who had a thing for nicknames." She answered with a smile, "but when I saw the look on your face when I pointed a gun at Kate, I figured there must have been some good left in you."

"I thought you were a cold bitch," he confessed seriously, "I thought that you were going to shoot her without hesitating." Juliet laughed

"I would never shoot her, I liked her file. I guess I'm better at conning people than you are, right?"

"Right," he agreed, his eyes were bright and with tears at bay, "I killed him. I chocked Sawyer to death, watched as the life left his body. What do you think of me now, Juliet?"

"You tell me, James." She answered. "Are you a bad person?" She asked tucking his hair behind his ear with her fingers.

"I'm not anymore. I was all those things you said. I was stupid and a hypocrite, I killed Sawyer, when it wasn't my place to decide who lives or die. And I regret doing it until this day." One tear made its way down his face. "But I changed, I changed for you!" He kissed her again, this time with no intention of stopping.

"I'm on your side…" Juliet murmured into his mouth.

"What?" He broke the kiss and asked.

"I said I'm on your side!" She repeated, "I once promised you the day you would tell me whether you were a good person or not I would tell you whose side I was on. Well, I'm on your side!" James smiled.

"Thank you!" He said cupping her face with his hands tenderly. "So I can count on you? You got my back now?" She nodded her head and smiled.

"I've always got your back."

"Good, because I've got yours!"

She giggled when he picked her up on his arms and carried her to the bedroom, where they spent the night proving to each other how big their love really was.

----------------------

**Albuquerque**** - 2007**

"Mummy, what's that thing?" Aaron asked pointing at an animal in the Zoo.

"That's a Giraffe, Lil Stinker." Five year old Clementine told him, she was holding his hand, taking care of him as if he was a real life size doll.

Kate and Cassidy were taking the kids to the zoo that afternoon, they did that a lot, they were really good friends. Before Sawyer jumped off the chopper, he told Kate that he had a daughter, he wanted Kate to find her. At first, Kate didn't even know where to start looking, all she knew was his alias and his name. And James Ford is a very common name.

Then Kate remembered a face from her past. Her name was Cassidy, she had helped Kate talk to her mother way back when Kate was running from the Marshal. In the little time she had known Cassidy, the woman had become her best friend. Cassidy had a sad story, she fell in love with the wrong guy who conned her for her money, and left her knocked up. Kate knew that Cassidy had to be the mother of Sawyer's child.

Finding Cassidy was the easiest thing. And once she found her and Clementine, they resumed their friendship. Two single moms, with a sad love story regarding the same man.

"How are you and Jack doing?" Cassidy asked, noticing that her friend had drifted into her thoughts.

"Jack is crazy," Kate told her, she felt good to finally confide in someone. "You remember the other day you called me to invite me for Clementine ballet presentation?"

"Yeah."

"Well, Jack overheard us talking and got a little suspicious. Then the other day when I got home late, he started to ask about you. He demanded to know who were you and where I had been."

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him I was doing something for Sawyer." Cassidy looked deep into Kate's eyes, she saw the tears threatening to spill out. "He was insanely jealous. He told me that I had only chosen him because Sawyer wasn't there. He yelled on my face that I'm not even related to him." Kate nodded her head on Aaron's direction.

"I'm sorry," Cassidy put her hand on Kate's arm for support, Kate cried.

"And this isn't the worst part, Cassie." She said sniffing. "Jack has been using drugs, he calls me in the middle of the night, stoned on pills, saying that we have to go back, that we shouldn't have left! I don't know what to do, I don't want to go back!"

Cassidy hugged Kate as she sobbed nervously. Clementine and Aaron watched curiously as Kate broke down crying.

----------------------

**Island in the ****70's**

Juliet lay on her stomach, her eyes were closed. She had a big smile on her face as she thought about her day. She could still hear the shrieking sound of the little baby boy as she held him supporting his head, she could still she the blood all over his fragile body. She hadn't heard that sound for years, and somehow she had started to believe she was a jinx. That once she came to this island she had been cursed and was doomed to never hear that sound again.

But today the curse had been broken, she knew it the minute she pulled the baby out of Amy's womb and the boy started to move his legs in a walk reflex. She knew it by the look on Amy's face, that look of total happiness, the look that made Juliet decide to become a fertility doctor in the first place. Today Juliet had won back her confidence.

The thoughts on her mind started to change course as James's hands travelled up and down her bare back in slow motion, rubbing on the spots he knew she liked most, massaging away any trace of tension and caressing the delicate places he loved the most. She felt the softness of his lips on her skin with a shiver of pleasure. She felt the heat of his breathing on the back of her neck with goosebumps.

"I love your back, Dr. LaFleur!" He whispered into her ears, one of his hands still caressing her back. Juliet chuckled excited.

"I'm glad you do, because I love it when you give me a back rub."

He laughed and she could feel his body moving when he was so close to her, this evening was magical in every detail. He kept on making wonders to her back with his fingers, kissing his way down between the curves of her spine, stopping to admire his favorite part, the small of her back.

"I love this little mark," he caressed the mark that refused to fade with time.

"That's because you are not the one that was marked!" She said without bothering too much with the past, she better joke than let it ruin the evening.

"I know it must have hurt, but I like to believe you were marked for me!" He kept stroking it, making little circles around it.

"I beg your pardon?" Juliet opened her eyes, but found it a little hard to face him since he was sitting up and she had her back to him. So she looked at lamp on her nightstand instead.

"They marked you because you killed Danny Picket," he explained, "if you hadn't killed him he would have killed me. You got my back that day, you saved my life and they marked you. They branded you and this is my brand. You're mine." The tone on his voice told her he was more proud than possessive, she felt his lips again, kissing her mark. "You are mine, Juliet," he said sweetly on her skin, "branded just for me!"

"This is so sexist," Juliet joked turning to face him, he took a moment just to admire her, it made her feel so especial when he looked at her like that. "I love you!" He looked at her eyes smiling and showing off his beautiful dimples, one on each cheek. Then he lied on top of her to capture her lips with his mouth.

"I love you so much," he said on her mouth, kissing her, showing how he meant every world. He ended the kiss abruptly to look at her. At the loss of his lips she opened her eyes inquisitively trying to make out what was going on in his mind. "Juliet, I know we don't talk much about this…"

"What?" She asked confused.

"You know, baby stuff…" He answered a little uncomfortable for bringing it up, "we talked once about what we were going to do to avoid it. Because, you know, every woman on the island who got pregnant died."

"Yes…" She said with impenitence; she just wanted to know where he was going with this.

"Now that we know that women don't die in the 70's, does it change anything?"

"What do you mean, James?"

"I don't know, do you want to have kids someday?"

"With you?" She asked in a high pitched tone.

"No, dimwit, with the smoke monster!" James joked and Juliet laughed. "Imagine your face and his temper." She smiled

"Do you think about stuff like that?" She asked with a dreamy tone to her voice.

"Well…" She noticed that his cheeks were becoming red. "Sometimes… It would be fun to have boy around, to teach him how to shoot a gun and to freak him with stories about the haunted island. Do _you_ think about stuff like that?"

"Yeah… Sometimes… It would be fun to use our son to gang up on you!" They laughed together.

"So what do you say?" He asked

"Are you asking me if I want to have a baby with you?" He nodded, "right now?" She asked surprised and he shrugged. "Since when do you like babies so much? I seem to recall something about a love child you never met."

"Clementine is different, Juliet."

"Different how?"

"For one, I didn't even know Cassidy was pregnant, and I bet she doesn't want me nowhere near her daughter. When we get off this island, if, we get off! I sure as hell will want to meet her." He said looking deep into her eyes for what he was going to say next. "I want to have a baby with you because I like us so much! So… What do you say?"

"Maybe…" she didn't really know the answer, "how about we stop trying not to get pregnant and see where it goes?"

"Sounds like a plan to me!" He said smiling before kissing her to seal the deal.

----------------------

**Los Angeles - 2007**

Kate reached for the key inside her pocket. As she heard the lock clicking open she thanked heavens that Jack hadn't changed his lock. The apartment was dark and cold, the tick-tack from the living room clock was the only sound that fulfilled the silence. She knew that Jack wasn't home, she walked inside his bedroom and lied on the bed.

She had lied there many times before, the moments of passion she had shared with Jack on the bed blurred into the agonizing sorrow she was feeling. For days now she had been tormented by the ghost of Claire, she visited her in Kate's dream, telling her not to bring Aaron back. But last night, when they were on the market, Kate lost Aaron.

One minute he was holding her hand, and the other she couldn't find him. She was desperate, she couldn't lose Aaron, she just couldn't! Her heart skipped a beat when she saw him, walking out of the market holding hands with a woman. Kate thought she was Claire, that she had finally come back for her son, that she came back to steal him from her.

But it wasn't Claire, just a regular woman who was trying to help a little boy find his mummy. Kate was relieved and at the same time she felt like it was about time. She knew that someone would someday come to take Aaron away from her. Because he wasn't her son, even though she loved him to death, he wasn't her son.

It was already happening, Ben was threatening to take Aaron away from her if she didn't come back to island. Kate had made a decision that night, she walked into Claire's mother hotel room, and told her that she had a grandson, that her daughter wasn't dead, and that Kate would come back and rescue Claire. Because Claire was Aaron's mother and Claire needed him much more than Kate needed him.

Kate heard as Jack arrived, she heard him pouring some drink on the kitchen. She made a noise to announce herself. He walked suspiciously into the bedroom; he was relieved to find her there.

"Kate?" He asked confused after he recognized her. "What are you doing here?

"Are you still going back to the Island?" She asked

"Yeah. Yeah, I think I am."

"Then I'm going with you!" She told him.

"Kate... what happened? Where's Aaron? Where…" She got up to face him.

"No, don't ask questions." She said angrily. "If you want me to go with you... you'll never ask me that question again. You will never ask me about Aaron. Do you understand, Jack?"

"Yes," he answered.

"Thank you!" She said and kissed him hard on the lips. He took off his coat and they lied on the bed. That night she just needed something to make her forget. She didn't care what Jack would think of her in the morning, Jack used pills to forget his problems. Kate used sex.

----------------------

**Island ****- 1977**

The phone ringing woke him up. James could feel the rays of sun on his skin and her arms around his body as Juliet held him, they were spooned together and he loved the warmth of her body pressed to his. She tugged at him to answer the phone. He knew she wasn't a morning person.

"Oh," he grunted not in the mood to answer the phone, maybe it would just stop ringing, but it didn't. He crawled over Juliet because the phone was on her nightstand, she was such a lazy ass, he thought as her reached for the phone. She had her back to him using the pillow to shield away the sunshine. "What?" He asked annoyed instead of hello. "Wait…. What?... No. No. Don't bring them in. Just meet me in the north valley."

He hung up, jumped out of bed wearing light blue boxers and a sleeveless white shirt. He heard her moving in bed, felt her worried eyes on him.

"Who was it?" She asked as he retrieved his glasses on the dresser, he sighed as he snagged a Dharma jumpsuit from the closet. "James, what's going on?"

"It was Jin," he answered and turned to leave thinking he could deal with her questions later.

"Is everything okay?" He didn't want to have this conversation now, when he still didn't know what to think of it, but he couldn't ignore her either.

"Yeah. I just… I gotta go." He left before she could press the subject any further.

As James rode to the north valley he thought about the implications of the news Jin had just given him. They were back. James actually believed that this day would never come. James had come to accept that his life was now in the seventies, sure they kept looking, but he never expected to find anything. To tell the truth, James didn't even know for sure if he wanted them to ever come back.

This wasn't a question anymore, they were back!

James parked his Jeep as he arrived at the north valley. He got out as he watched a blue van approaching and stopping near. His heart was beating furiously on his ribcage as each familiar face came out of the open door, first Hurley carrying a guitar, then Jack in a fancy suit. He had to take his glasses off in order not to miss as Kate stepped out from behind Hurley.

He didn't know what he was feeling, probably a mixture of unfinished business, but he had truly forgotten her face. She was different than what he remembered, and there was no denying that she was just as breath taking as she always had been. But there was something different about her, and it probably came from inside of him. And in between the rush of feelings there was something that stood out. He just could put a name to it.


	9. You’re Obsessed

**You're Obsessed**  
[Chapter 08 – Part 09 of 12]

**Author's Note:** First, I'd like to thank you guys for all the wonderful reviews I've been getting. There's been so many, do you think I can get 50 reviews before the story is over? I hope so, but there's few chapters left I don't know…

Anyway, this chapter is Ben centric. I didn't intend to write a chapter just for Ben, but as the ideas started to form in my mind I knew that it would have to be done. Some of Ben's flashbacks will be on the seventies when our favorite castaways joined up Dharma Initiative, so you'll get to see A-Team. Real time will be both on island and off the island. Juliet will be all over the place even though it's Ben centric. There's a major twist to Ben and Juliet's relationship. Benliet fans will go crazy, I promise!!! And to all Sulieteers out there, don't panic, we all know where Juliet's heart stands.

Just for those who have forgotten, flashbacks are in italics.

**Chapter Summary:** Benjamin Linus has hurt all the women he has ever loved, but now he wants to make amends, maybe there is still time to make one of them happy.

----------------------

_**Island - 2001**_

"_Hello, Harper!" She was walking towards her office when she heard his voice calling out to her. She turned to look into his horrible eyes. She hated him so much!_

"_Yes, Ben?" She asked with a fake smile_

"_I see you have a session with Juliet," he said approaching her and stopping inches close to Harper, she hated that he was so close to her, she hated that he was bringing Juliet up to the conversation._

"_Yes, but honestly, I don't see the point. She's not happy here. She hasn't got a clue how to help the pregnant women. I don't understand why you can't just send her back."_

"_You are very much aware, Harper, that she can't leave this island!" She kept on smiling, but looking at him as if she could kill him with her eyes._

"_So, why are you here, Ben? You want me to send her to room 23 again?" Harper asked because that was Ben's answer to everything. And it wouldn't be the first time that he had asked for Juliet to be brainwashed. "It doesn't work on her!"_

"_She is coming around." He said calmly. "But, no, that's not why I'm here. I want you to ask her what she thinks of me!" Ben ordered._

_Harper closed her eyes, trying to conceal all the anger she felt inside. She hated Juliet more than anyone else in this world. She hated her more than she hated the pathetic excuse for a man who was standing right in front of her. She wanted nothing to with that woman. She didn't want to even talk to her._

"_I'm curious, Ben, why are you so interested on this woman?"_

"_You actually don't know?" He asked sarcastically._

"_Is it because she looks so much like her?"_

"_Isn't that why you hate her so much?" He countered looking at her with creepy eyes._

"_Not just because of that!" She answered, her voice filled up with resentment._

"_That's right!" Ben exclaimed ironically. "She's sleeping with your husband!" Harper shot him a steel glance. How dare he talk to her like that? "If you want Goodwin to live, you better make sure that she stops her relationship with him." Harper nodded her head. "And find out what she thinks of me!" He said again leaving her to her business._

----------------------

**Miami - 2007**

Ben didn't like to be out of the island, he was brought to the island when he was just seven years old. He had learned to live between the mountains, with the sound of the ocean and the birds chirping. The real world was not his home, but he had needed to leave the island, and now that he was out there, he had some business to take care of.

He walked the steps of a beach house. Miami was the closest thing he had to a home out in the real world, but not just because of the beaches. He liked Miami because it reminded Ben of her. He had been to this house before, he had already walked up those steps, and he had knocked on that door somewhere on his past. And now he was reliving that day.

As he knocked on the door the sound was alien to his ear. It was as if the sound wasn't as clear as it was on the island, the light wasn't as bright. He waited patiently outside as the door opened to reveal the same woman who one day had opened that same door to him.

She was much older, of course, but the old woman was still as sweet and carrying as the first time he had met her. She smiled and it radiated, Ben knew that beautiful smile, he knew someone who had inherited it. Ben also smiled, greeting her.

"Hello, Mrs. Carlson!" He greeted

"Hello!" She paused studying him. "Do I know you?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact. But we've only met once a little less than twenty years ago."

"Oh," she said trying to recognize his face.

"My name is Ryan Wilson, I'm a spokesperson from BYM."

"Oh, yes, now I remember you. From Bright Young Minds, you provided financial aid for my daughter Juliet to study aboard."

"That would be correct. We heard she had a very successful career after she attended college at Australia."

"Yes, she did!" The woman said smiling proudly. "If you don't mind me asking, what are you doing here Mr. Wilson?"

"I have heard about your daughter passing away, I came to give you my condolences."

"Oh, that's sweet of you!" She said opening her door wider mentioning for him to enter. "Would you like to come in?"

"Of course, if that's not a problem." He entered the house and she led him to the living room, she offered him to take a seat.

"My daughter has been dead for six years now. I've already made my piece with it." The woman told him, smiling warmly. "Would you like some coffee or tea?"

"Tea would be great!" She left to make them tea, Ben looked around the room observing the different pictures on the walls.

----------------------

_**Island - 1974**_

_Ben was sitting on the cafeteria, alone as always. After his best friend's death the nine year old boy refused to make new friends. He missed Annie so much, and he was mad that she was taken away from him. It seemed like he wasn't allowed to love someone. _

_But that wasn't the only reason that he didn't have any friends. Ben didn't like these people, he hated them. He hated this place, he wished he could leave, he wished the Hostiles would let him live with them. But Richard told him he needed to be patient. _

_Ben was tired of waiting! He was mad that he had to live with his father, he was mad that his mother died and wasn't there to protect him. Ben feared the nights that his father would come home drunk after trying to drink away his misery. He hated him so much that it actually hurt, it hurt more than when his father beat him._

_The boy felt like he was living inside a nightmare. And every day that passed by, Ben would close his eyes and wish he would wake up. But the irony was that he could only feel awake when he dreamed. He dreamed of them. He dreamed of his mother, he dreamed that she was holding him on her arms telling him she loved him. He dreamed of Annie , he dreamed that they were running free through the jungle playing hide and seek._

_He was a shy boy, and he didn't want to make friends. Because these people were mean to him. Ben's only friends were the books he read trying to escape from reality. He was quiet, he tried to make things better, to express his feelings on pieces of paper. And that was why he was sitting alone in the cafeteria._

_He was writing on his journal, when he noticed them approaching. The girl was beautiful and one of the most popular kids on school. She had the most enticing hair, it was long and chestnut colored. Her eyes were big, green and perfectly shaped. She had a cute mole on her jaw and a slight chin dimple. She was so beautiful and cool that everyone wanted to be her friend. Except for Ben!_

"_What are you doing, Ben?" She asked taking a seat next to him._

_A couple of her friends, bad boys and mean girls sat as well. Ben felt cornered. He knew the kids were looking for someone to pick on. And he didn't want to be the one to be teased. He closed his journal, and not even once glanced towards her; he was going to put the journal on his pack when she snatched it from his hand._

"_What is this, bug eyes?" She asked in a taunting manner, he tried to retrieve it but she dodged him, one of her friends held Ben's arms. "Is this your dear diary?" Her friends laughed at him. _

"_Give it back, Harper!" Ben begged, but she barely heard him._

"_May 25__th__," she begun to read aloud, Ben wanted to make her stop, but the boy was holding him really hard. He hated Harper so much! "Mom, when I woke today it was chilly and I thought it was going to rain." _

"_He is so stupid!" Ben heard one of the girls saying between fits of laughter, in fact all of them were laughing. Ben felt completely humiliated._

"_I looked around, but I couldn't find my bunny." Harper stopped reading and cooed sarcastically at him. "Did you lose your little bunny?" She asked laughing._

"_Stop it!" Ben shouted, he was feeling embarrassed, he started to cry, he just wanted to stop, he wanted her to stop. "I hate you… I hate you… I wish you were dead!" He kept repeating while they kept laughing harder._

"_What is going on in here?" They all stopped to look up at the woman wearing a navy blue Dharma jumpsuit._

"_Nothing!" Harper answered innocently, "we were just playing a game, weren't we?" She asked Ben, warning him not to disagree._

"_No we weren't, you were reading my journal!" Ben said crying with both hate and humiliation._

"_It's called a diary you sissy!" She said and all kids begun to laugh again._

"_THA'S IT!" The woman shouted getting the attention of all the people sitting around the cafeteria. She looked at the young lady with stern eyes and snatched the journal out of her hand. "You let him go!" She ordered firmly to the boy who was holding Ben._

_He obeyed, Ben got to his feet picking his pack and stormed out of the cafeteria. The woman looked at him for a brief moment and then turned to the girl who was looking at her with daring eyes._

"_You should be ashamed of yourself young lady!" The woman complained._

"_You are not my mother!" The girl said crossing her arms, waiting for some kind of response, but the woman just turned her back to her and left._

_She followed the little boy, he had run to hide behind a big tree in the middle of the barracks, it wasn't difficult to find him. The poor boy was crying his eyes out, trying to dispose of the agony he was feeling. He noticed her presence and turned around whipping his face._

"_Here," she gave him his journal back, "I think this is yours."_

"_Thank you!" He answered hoarsely._

"_I'm sorry about what happened," she said sympathetically, "I know how kids can be mean!" She smiled at him._

"_Thanks," he said looking at her puzzled, "I don't remember your face."_

"_Oh, I'm new here, I'm working on the motor pool."_

"_Really?!" He asked surprised._

"_Yeah, why?"_

"_Nothing, it's just that you are too beautiful to be working on the motor pool." She laughed tenderly at his comment._

"_Well, aren't you sweet talker!" She smiled at him. "What's your name?"_

"_I'm Benjamin, you can call me Ben." He answered watching her face as it turned pale, "what?"_

"_Nothing," she answered shaking her head. "I'm Juliet Burke." She reached her arms for him to shake her hand._

"_Thanks for being nice to me Miss Burke!" He shook her hand with a smile._

----------------------

**Miami - 2007**

"It's a nice home you have here Mrs. Carlson!" Ben commented taking a sip of his tea, he put his cup to rest atop the coffee table.

"Well, thank you! It's been awfully quiet since the girls moved out."

"I imagine so!"

"It's funny, when I look at those stairs," she pointed to the stairs near the front door, "I can still see them coming home from school giggling excitedly leaving a mess behind like two little tornados!" Ben smiled at her.

"Is that Juliet?" He asked looking at a picture of a blond baby with cheeks so big they seemed be ready to pop out any minute.

"Yes, she was the blond one, Rachel is the brunette toddler who is holding her."

"It's funny, they don't look much alike," Ben said, "but there is something similar about their faces."

"Yes, you got that right, they were very different. Rachel looks more like me, Juliet looked more like her father. She had his sweet eyes and wavy blonde hair." The woman looked at the picture feeling nostalgically. "Juliet was beautiful, she had a gorgeous hair. She always liked to wear it long." Ben smiled at the woman.

"I'm sure she has broken quite a few hearts."

"No," Mrs. Carlson said with bitterness on her voice, "she was the one who got her heart broken." She laughed, feeling a wonderful comfort just to talk about her daughter. "She was a sweet person; her older sister always bossed her around when they were little. Juliet was always obedient, I don't know why, but the girl never had troubles with following orders. Rachel had cancer, you know? I was always worried I would lose Rachel when she was too young I never imagined Juliet would be the first to go." A tear rolled down the woman's cheek, "oh, I'm crying. I'm sorry I just miss her sometimes."

"Don't worry, I know what it is like to lose a daughter."

"You do?"

"Yes, I recently lost a daughter." He couldn't believe how emotional the conversation was starting to get. "She was young, sixteen, and I can still hear her telling me she hated me."

"I'm sure she didn't mean that. Kids that age just want to be free."

"I know, she was mad because I didn't like her boyfriend."

"See, it was just her hormones. I sure she loved you." The woman told him.

Ben nodded and faced away. He had been telling these lies for so many times now that he actually believed them. Ben spotted a frame on the coffee table by his side. He gestured if he could pick it up and the woman allowed him. He held the picture with his hands.

He looked at her and it was like she was smiling at him. He had known her for so long that he would recognize her even with his eyes closed. He knew those eyes, even though they were younger and more innocent; he recognized that delicate nose, even though it was of child; and he would recognize that smiled anywhere, even with a couple of teeth missing.

Her hair was shorter than usual, but it was wavy and blond, bright with the sun bathing it, she was wearing a pink bathing suit and her belly looked like a big balloon, probably full of milk. Ben couldn't help but smile back at the picture.

"I like this one the best!" He told the woman who was sitting next to him.

"I do too!"

"She has a sincere calmness about her, hasn't she?"

"Yes," she answered holding back tears, "she did. She was such an angel!" Ben looked at her with the picture still on his hand.

"Mrs. Carlson, I have a confession to make. I didn't come here to give you my condolences…" She looked at him confused. "Because your daughter is not dead!"

----------------------

_**Island - 1975**_

_He plucked the most beautiful Lilly on the garden as he thought about her. The flower reminded him of her, of her personality. The Lilly was bright pink, white on the border of the petals with tones of green and yellow. The flower was simple, strong and open, but at the same time __breathtaking gorgeous, just like her! _

_During the last year he had known Miss Burke, Ben had found reason to be happy again, to smile and laugh. He had found reason to have hope and faith. She had changed him, just because she was sweet, and nice to him. He liked to talk to her. She was the only person who actually listened to him. And he liked to listen to her. She had a calm voice that never failed to soothe him._

_He approach the motor pool, she was working underneath a blue Dharma Jeep. "Hey, Miss Burke!"_

_She wheeled herself out from underneath the Jeep. "Ben, what are you doing here?" She looked up at him confused._

"_I came to give you this," he showed her the Lilly._

_She smiled at him and then pulled herself up, she accepted the flower. He was used to come by and bring her flowers all the time. She had a glass ready just to put them on water. _

"_Knock, Knock!" Ben asked as Miss Burke put the flower on the glass of water, she smiled, the boy loved jokes._

"_Who's there?"_

"_Little old Bennie."_

"_Little old Bennie who?"_

"_Wow, Miss Burke, didn't know you could yodel!" They laughed together._

"_That's funny, Ben," she said, "but you shouldn't be here now!" She looked at him like a mother would look at a mischief child. "Why aren't you at school?"_

"_I don't want to go to school anymore!" He looked down at the floor. "They still pick on me, I don't want to go!" He looked at her again, this times his eyes pleaded her not to make him go._

"_Ben, it's not my place to tell you what to do." Her voice said one thing, but he knew by the way she looked at him that she disapproved of him skipping school._

"_You don't understand, Miss Burke. It hurts to be here, I hate this, I hate these people, I hate my father, I hate this place!"_

_She looked at him with sympathy; she understood how much he didn't want to be there. She used to feel the same thing when the adult version of the boy in front of her was holding her back, keeping her a prisoner there. She understood how he would turn and hate those people, but she also didn't want him to feel like this. She wanted to change him! _

_She hugged him, she needed to comfort him. She had only hugged him once before, and that was last year, or to be more precisely, it would be thirty years from then. It was going to be a totally different situation; she was going to be begging him to save her from that place. Now however it was the other way around, he was begging her to save him from that place. Wasn't time travel ironic?_

"_No, Ben," she said stroking his hair, "don't be like this. I know it's hard," she spoke from experience. "I know it hurts so badly when people are mean. But trust me! You don't want to put hate on your heart. Hate is a tricky emotion, it can turn you into a person you don't want to be!"_

_Ben had been quiet, he just wanted to feel the warm comfort of her embrace. It was magical how one simple gesture of tenderness could help making him stronger. He had never been held by a woman like that, it felt so good. He was sad. He asked himself why God had denied him such an important person. He missed his mother so much and yet he never remembered her ever holding him._

_But as Miss Burke kept on hugging him and stroking his hair he understood that God had given him a mother. Not one that gave birth to him, but one that was sweet and that cared about him. Yes, it was magical how just a simple hug could make him love her so much. _

_He looked up at her. "I like you, Miss Burke, you are nice to me. I wish you were my mother!"_

_She smiled at him and caressed his face. She felt bad for him. It must be tough to lose a mother at your birthday, it must be hard not to know what it feels like to be cuddled by the person who gave you life. She didn't blame him for how he felt. But she couldn't help to wonder how such a sweet boy would turn out to be a horrible human being._

"_What's that?" He asked, she noticed his gaze upon the ring on her finger._

"_Oh," she said, "I'm engaged."_

"_To who__?" He asked_

_She was about to answer when they heard LaFleur, the head of security, asking, "what are you doing out of school, kid?" _

_Ben turned to him and begged, "please don't tell my father!" Ben stared at him afraid, the man gave him shivers._

"_Just leave the lady alone and scram!" LaFleur said and Ben obeyed, running out of the motor pool._

_As Ben left he could hear Miss Burke saying, "he's not bad, he's just a kid, James!"_

----------------------

**Miami - 2007**

"What do you mean my daughter is not dead?" The woman asked disturbed by the news

"She isn't. We faked her death." She stared at him astonished, "Mrs. Carlson, Mittelos Bioscience doesn't exist and I don't work for BYM. My name is Benjamin Linus and your daughter has been recruited to work on a very especial mission."

"How dare you joke about what happened to my deceased daughter? It's not funny!"

"It's not a joke! She is very much alive and is now probably working on a motor pool in the seventies." The woman looked at him disgusted by his sick sense of humor. "But don't worry, I'm going back and I'm going to make things right."

"Why are you doing this to me, why are you hurting me like this?"

"I have deeply hurt all the women I ever loved, Mrs. Carlson, and your daughter is one of them. At least with Juliet I can still make amends. All I want is for her to end up happy." She was silent, just staring at him with disbelief. "Can I keep this picture?" She didn't answer him. She didn't know what to say.

He took her silence as an yes, he took the picture out of the frame and put it protectively on his shirt pocket. She just kept staring at him, mouth agape. He knew that expression, Juliet had used it on him many times especially the day he showed her Goodwin's dead body. Ben got up letting himself out, but stopped by the threshold.

"Thank you for the picture, Mrs. Carlson!"

----------------------

_**Island - 2001**_

"_Did you ask for me?" Richard asked entering Ben's office._

"_Yes, I have a project for you," Ben answered gathering some papers. Richard took a seat on the chair in front of Ben's desk. "Mikhail drop me her current whereabouts today. I think she is ready to come."_

"_You mean Dr. Burke?"_

"_Yes, Richard, I mean her. She is almost succeeding on getting her sister pregnant. I don't see why we need to wait any longer."_

"_Ben, I want you to think about what you are asking of me." Richard suggested, Ben looked at him expecting his speech. "I know that she needs to come help our women get pregnant, but I don't think that's the reason why you want her here."_

"_What are you implying?"_

"_You're obsessed, Ben!" Ben studied Richard, "you have been following her life from a distance even back when Widmore was the leader. Why do you like her so much, Ben?" He didn't answer. "Why are you so obsessed about bringing her to island?"_

"_I have my reasons, Richard?"_

"_Are those personal reasons? Because you are focusing your attention on these women getting pregnant, that you are losing focus on what's really important."_

"_He wanted this to happen, that's why he destroyed it!" Ben explained. "She is supposed to come to the island, now can you arrange that?"_

"_If you say so," Richard left defeated and disappointed, but he didn't want to argue with Ben._

----------------------

**Island**** - 2007**

Ben had to practically move heaven and earth to bring as many people back to the island as he could, or else it wouldn't have worked. He was even surprised to see Jarrah and Reyes on the plane, but he suspected that Widmore had something to do with it. He didn't care, he was glad he was back.

He had planned this day ever since he was chosen as the leader. He had made his people build the runway on the Hydra island because he knew that was where Ajira flight 316 would land safe and sound. He knew that the oceanic six were flashed back to 1977 where the rest of the survivors were stuck including Juliet, except for Sun. He knew Widmore would send some of his people on the flight too, Eloise had warned him about that.

The only thing he didn't have planned was John Locke to come back from death. He knew that Locke had to die, or else Jack wouldn't have come back, he knew that Locke wouldn't be able to kill himself after being to the island. So Ben had to get his hands dirty and choke him to death. But the fact that Ben was following Locke into the barracks scared the hell out of him.

As they approached the houses, Ben heard whispers, he listened carefully thinking he had heard the word "eternity" and as he kept his attention on the whispers he felt a little better to hear that famous name on the wind, "Juliet." Ben was no longer afraid, because that was why he brought her to the island, she was here to save him!

----------------------

_**Island - 2004**_

_Ben was lying on his __side on the operating room waiting for Ivan to start treating him, after Jack Shephard operated on him, Ben developed a serious infection, but Jack wasn't particular willing to help him. And since Ben's best bargain material had to be sacrificed, that being Ford and Austen, Ben didn't held high hopes of Jack changing his mind._

_But Ben didn't care anymore, he had been betrayed, and of course, he should have known better. He was the one who believed that it was useless to have friends you can't trust. But he knew Juliet was more than just a friend. And that was why it hurt him so much when she asked Jack to kill him. _

_He truly hadn't seen that one coming. He knew that he shouldn't blame her, he had done horrible things to her. He had manipulated her and emotionally tortured her. But he thought he knew her, he thought she was a good person, that she would never ask someone to kill another human being._

_But apparently he was wrong. She only had one interest and it was going back home to her sister, she would do anything to make sure she did. She would even kill someone for that. For a moment he thought she wasn't going to have the guts to pull the trigger, but as soon as he woke up from surgery he heard the news that Juliet had killed Pickett._

_She wasn't like that, on his memories she was the sweetest person he had ever known, she was tender and carrying. She wouldn't hurt a fly. Apparently, she had changed. And what pained Ben the most was that he knew that he was the one that had changed her. He wanted to die for turning a beautiful soul into the selfish person that she had become._

_Ben was brought back from his thoughts of Juliet by Jack busting into the room. To Ben's surprise, Alex stood by Jack's side like a little traitor. It seemed that all the people he cared about did nothing but stab him on the back. And as sad as it sounded he had seen this coming. _

"_I wouldn't do that!" Jack said as Ivan was about to inject a needle on Ben's back._

"_The cavalry has arrived, at last," Ben taunted._

"_I'd be more impressed with you people if you had a good surgeon." Jack spat_

"_We had an excellent surgeon, Jack. His name was Ethan." Ben knew it was pointless to try and make Jack guilty. But he couldn't help, but mention Ethan. _

"_You've got a very serious infection, Ben." Jack started, "that infected tissue needs to be reincised, debrided; and you need be closely monitored from here on out. There might be nerve damage or any number of other complications. You might not walk again."_

"_Your bedside manner leaves something to be desired," Ben commented emotionless._

"_Well, then it's too bad you're stuck with me."_

"_Am I?"_

"_You need a doctor, Ben. Someone to stay with you, bring you back to good health."_

"_And, here we go again. I've already given you a ticket off this island, Jack. What's it going to cost me this time?" Ben asked not really sure what more Jack could want._

"_Right now, you're people are in a room deciding whether or not to execute Juliet. You're going to stop it!" Ben tried to conceal his surprise. He didn't expect Jack to care about Juliet, especially not after Jack exposed to everyone that she had asked him to kill Ben._

"_Juliet doesn't care about you, Jack. It doesn't matter what she's done. No matter what you think… she's one of us." Ben didn't want Jack to feel sympathetically towards Juliet, he wanted her to die alone._

"_Do we have a deal or not?" _

_Jack asked and Ben pondered. If Juliet died than she would never go back to the seventies, and Ben would never have met her and he wouldn't love her so much. Her betrayal wouldn't hurt him so much. But he needed to be open minded, he needed Jack's help, and he could use Juliet to get to Jack later._

"_Does Isabel have a walkie?" Ben asked Alex._

"_They're already in the meeting," she told him._

"_Then get me something to write on."_

_Ben decided that Juliet was better alive then dead, and besides, the island needed her, he couldn't be so selfish to kill her just to stop his hurting. But he wouldn't let her walk free with her betrayal, he wanted her to be sure that she was his! He wanted her to be marked!_

----------------------

**Note#01****: **The whispers Ben heard when he approached the barracks were actually heard by Sun and Frank in episode Namaste. I know that most people don't believe on the whispers transcriptions, but Damon Lindelof agreed that they do use sound effect to twist what those damn whispers say. The Whispers in Namaste were hard to decipher, but the word "Eternity" is defiantly there, the rest of the can be either "Juliet" or "Jury is Out", for the sake of my story, I went with "Juliet" and made Ben hear it too instead of just Sun and Frank.

**Note#02:** The first time I watched the enhanced episode 4.06 "The Other Woman" it said that Ben had only had one significant woman on his life and it was Annie, the girl who gave him a craving of herself. Since then I started asking myself why would Ben go to all sorts of lengths to make sure Juliet understood that she was his? After watching season 5 and then turning back to watch this episode again I finally understood why.

When Harper asks Juliet what she thinks of Ben, Juliet tells her that Ben had been really good to her. We see Harper getting angry when she says under her breathe "Of course he has. You look just like her!" When Juliet asks what she just said Harper ignores her and confronts Juliet about her sleeping with Goodwin. I don't know about you, but that thing really bugged me for a long time, but the writers never touched that subject again so I ended up forgetting about it.

Then it hit me, Juliet looks like "her" because she IS "her", the woman who saved Ben's life.

This chapter was fun to write, I'm a real fan of Benliet, so I hope you liked it because it's mostly my assumptions. Please keep reviewing, I love those lovely reviews!!!


	10. You’re Crazy

**You're Crazy**  
[Chapter 09 – Part 10 of 12]

**Author's Note:** Damon and Carlton have been stalling us for far too long. It's time to get some answers. The war is coming, find out what you missed in the very few last episodes of season five. This chapter is not centric on anyone in particular. It's the beginning of the end, as so Ben would call it. Find out what is happening to Ben both in the seventies and in 2007. A little reminder, flashbacks are in italics.

**Chapter Summary:** Everyone wants answers regarding what is going on in the island, now that Sayid has created chaos, James might get more answers than he barged for.

----------------------

_**Island - **__**2004**_

_Locke walk__ed into the kitchen of the Hatch, he found Mr. Eko sitting at the table. "Hello again," he greeted. _

"_Hello. I have something I think you should see." Locke took a seat across the table from him. "If you don't mind, I will begin at the beginning." Mr. Eko said and Locke agreed with nod of his head. "Long before Christ the king of Judah was a man named Josiah."_

"_Boy when you say beginning, you mean… Beginning." Locke joked briefly. _

"_At that time the temple where the people worshiped was in ruin. And so the people worshiped idols, false gods. And so the kingdom was in disarray. Josiah, since he was a good king, sent his secretary to the treasury and said: _'We must rebuild the temple. Give all of the gold to the workers so that this will be done.' _But when the secretary returned, he had no gold. And when Josiah asked why this was, the secretary replied, _'We found a book.'_ Do you know this story? _

"_No, I'm afraid I don't." _

"_What the secretary had found was an ancient book, the Book of Law. You may know it as the Old Testament. And it was with that ancient book, not with the gold, that Josiah rebuilt the temple." Mr. Eko finished his story. "On the other side of the island we found a place much like this, and in this place we found a book." Mr. Eko unwrapped the book and pushed it toward Locke. "I believe what's inside there will be of great value to you."_

_Locke opened the book__ of laws sitting at the table. A square had been cut out, and inside there was a piece of film. Locke took it out looking at the strip. He saw frames with Marvin Candle, the guy from the Swan Station Orientation film._

----------------------

**Island - ****1977**

"Is everything okay?" Juliet asked worried as James turned to leave.

"Yeah. I just… I gotta go." He left before she could press the subject any further.

Juliet stared at the empty room, she was feeling sick to her stomach, something really bad was about to come, she knew. She was worried about James, she feared that he had gone to help Jin with the hostiles again, maybe there was a shooting, and she didn't want to think about the consequences.

She got up and went to take a shower, trying to take her mind off this morning's incident, but the feeling that bad news were coming wouldn't leave her for nothing. She did her morning chores, and instead of heading for the motor pool she went to talk to Miles.

"Miles, have you seen James?" She asked him entering the monitor room.

"Nope. He's not answering his walkie, either."

"Jin called him this morning," she took James's coffee mug on the table, sipping at it as she looked over the monitors for any signs of him, "then he just ran off without telling me what was going on." She explained worried.

"Well, let's see what we've got." Miles went over to where she was standing, he pushed some buttons. "Hang on," he pounded on the screen making static turn into an image, "there he is."

Juliet saw James parking in front of their house, she didn't wait before rushing back home. She found him on their bedroom, frenetically going over their closet, putting clothes on a bag.

"Hey," she called his attention.

"You seen my baggy sweatshirt, the one with the bulldog on it?" He asked

"It's in the laundry. James... what's going on?"

"They're back!" He confessed sounding a little worried.

"I'm sorry. Who's back?"

"Jack, Hurley, Kate." He answered as if it was pretty obvious.

"What?" She was confused, she thought they would never come back.

"I know. They came back, Juliet!"

"Are they here now?"

"They're out at the North Point, waiting for me to tell them what to do."

"How did they get..." She whispered sitting on the bed.

"I'm not sure. They said they were on a plane." He dropped the bag and sat on the bed next to her. He sighed. "I don't understand it any more than you do. But they're here, and I gotta find a way to bring them in before somebody else finds them and they screw up everything we got here."

"There's, um, a sub coming in this afternoon." She remembered. "We can put them on the list, say they were last minutes recruits."

"What would I ever do without you?" He asked rhetorically. "Ok, you deal with the manifest list, I'm going to bring them in." She agreed with nod of her head.

Juliet helped James pack some clothes, as she thought about Jack, Kate and Hurley's return, and how it would affect their relationship. James was right, they could destroy everything they got there, the friendships, their life on Dharmaville.

"It's gonna be ok!" He promised her before leaving, cupping her face with his hand and giving her a peck on the lips.

She looked at the watch on her wrist, she was supposed to have been punched in already, but she still needed to get the submarine manifest list. She looked around for Amy, she was sleeping peacefully on a hammock. She walked over to her, and picked the list that was resting on a table nearby.

"Juliet?" Amy woke with Juliet moving around her.

"Hey, Amy. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you."

"Oh, no, it's fine."

"I just came to get the sub manifest." Juliet smiled warmly at her. "Obviously, I don't want you working today."

"Thank you," Amy said with a nasal voice.

"Full load?" Juliet asked, she looked inside the playpen beside the hammock, Ethan was awake chewing on his fist.

"Almost. Two of the recruits dropped out in the eleventh hour. They didn't want to take the sedative for the trip. Can you tell Pierre for me?"

"Hi. Hi. Oh, hello, little one." Juliet said picking him up on her arms. "Oh, hey, buddy." She cooed at him and gave him to his mother.

"Take the list, and get the hell out of here, I don't want you catching my cold." Amy and Juliet shared a smile.

----------------------

"Your file," the Asian man from all those Dharma Station Orientation films explained to Jack as he took a seat in front of his desk. "Could they be any more disorganized on the other side? Sorry. Namaste. I'm Pierre Chang. Welcome to the Dharma Initiative. How was your ride in?"

"It was fine," Jack answered nervously.

"Good. Who was your shuttle driver?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Uh... the shuttle from the sub. Who was your driver?"

"Oh, that was, uh..." Jack couldn't tell him it was Sawyer, he searched in his mind for the name tag on Sawyer's jumpsuit. "um... Mr. LaFleur."

"Ah, yes. Good man, LaFleur. Runs a very tight operation." Dr. Chang set down the clipboard sighing. "I'm sorry for the disorganization. The woman who was supposed to be processing you in has the flu, and her baby is coming down with it. I got pulled out of my lab. I... ah, here it is... your job assignment. You've been assigned to the Shed." He handed Jack his jumpsuit.

"Work man," Jack read the name tag, "what does… what does that mean?"

"Based on your aptitude test, you'll be doing janitorial work." Jack chuckled and asked to be excused. He watched from a distance as Kate was having trouble with a guy on Dharma jumpsuit.

"What's your name?" The guy asked her.

"Kate... Austen…" Jack heard her saying.

"Austen..." He flipped through the pages on his hand. "Austen... Huh. You're not on my list, and you're not on the sub manifest either. Who's your recruiter?"

"Um..." Kate didn't know what to say, Jack was thinking of a plan out of the situation when he heard a familiar voice.

"Hold on, Phil." Jack watched Juliet coming into the room with some papers in hand. "I just got the new list from Amy. Some, uh, last-minute additions, including... Miss Austen?"

Jack sighed relieved that Juliet had come to their rescue. He didn't hear anything else, he was just stunned to see her. He had forgotten how beautiful she was; her blue jumpsuit complemented her big blue eyes, and the dark tone of the blue made her blonde locks and fair skin stand out. It was as if she was glowing.

Jack wanted to talk to her, but he wasn't supposed to know her. She looked briefly at him, and he was hurt when she looked away quickly as if she didn't even see him. He watched her and Kate talking, but his mind was elsewhere.

Later that same afternoon, Jack saw Sawyer bringing Sayid in handcuffs. He felt so bad at being out of the loop, Jack needed to talk to Sawyer. But where could he find him?

"Ah, excuse me. Um..." Jack asked Phil. "Could you tell me where James LaFleur lives?"

"Uh, that's his house right there." Phil pointed him towards James's house.

"Thanks!"

"But I wouldn't call him 'James'. He hates it."

Jack chuckled nervously making his way in the direction of his house. Jack never understood why Sawyer hated his real name, but he was glad to know some things never changed. Sawyer was always pissed at Locke and Kate when they called him James.

To Jack's surprise Juliet opened the door, she was smiling. "Hey, Jack!" She took him in for a hug and it felt so right, she was just as tender as she used to be three years ago.

"I saw you earlier today when you were helping Kate, and I wanted to say something to you then, but..."

"We're not supposed to know each other." She finished his sentence for him.

"Yeah," he agreed, "Um..." He begun embarrassed, he felt really uncomfortable being so close to her. He still felt guilty about leaving her behind. "I was looking for Sawyer. I guess I came to the wrong house."

"No," She said opening the door, "come in."

He did as he was told. He was confused as to what she was doing on Sawyer's house, it was after nine in the night, not an usual time for neighbors to be dropping by. But wherever Jack's mind traveled to, he wasn't expecting to find Sawyer, sitting in a chair, with a book in one hand, and a baby girl on the other.

"Evening, Doc!" Sawyer greeted him. "Have you met Rachel?" Jack was out of words.

"Well," he heard Juliet sighing, "I'm sure you two have a lot to talk about. Why don't I take Rachel to the nursery and give you two some privacy?" Jack watched stunned as Sawyer helped her with the baby, he watched as Juliet left cooing at the baby as she went. "It's time for bed sleepy head!"

As Jack looked back at him he noticed that Sawyer was looking at him with a hint of happiness by his surprised face. Jack noticed a sparkle on Sawyer's hands and he finally got the picture. He looked around trying to find anything that would end the uncomfortable silence. That's when he read the title of the book on Sawyer's hand.

"You are reading Carrie to a baby?" Jack asked surprised

"What? It's Juliet's favorite book!" They looked at each other, knowing full well they have shared romantic interest for the same two women. "Besides, Rachel just likes the sound of my voice, the scary plot is for my pleasure!" James put away the book. "So what can I do for you, Jack?"

Jack exhaled deeply, trying to put what he just discovered in the back of his mind. "I don't even know where to start. Uh... how about with Sayid?"

"I had no choice," Sawyer explained, "he was running around in the jungle, got caught by my people. And seeing as how he can't tell the truth about how he got here, I had to improvise."

"Improvise?" Jack repeated

"Uh-huh. And for now, Sayid is safe, which is all that matters."

"So where do we go from here?" Jack asked, anxiously for a plan.

"I'm working on it."

"Really?" Jack asked a little angry at Sawyer's calmness. "Because it looked to me like you were reading a book."

Sawyer chuckled at Jack's accusation, clearly the man hadn't changed one bit. "I heard once Winston Churchill read a book every night, even during the Blitz. He said it made him think better." Sawyer stopped before continuing. "It's how I like to run things. I think. I'm sure that doesn't mean that much to you, 'cause back when you were calling the shots, you pretty much just reacted. See, you didn't think, Jack, and as I recall, a lot of people ended up dead."

"I got us off the Island." Jack insisted, Sawyer felt a need to yell at him, tell him he got himself out of the island, and left everyone else to die. But Sawyer controlled himself.

"But here you are..." Sawyer said instead, "right back where you started. So I'm gonna go back to reading my book," he took Jack to the door, "and I'm gonna think, 'cause that's how I saved your ass today. And that's how I'm gonna save Sayid's tomorrow. All you gotta do is go home, get a good night's rest. Let me do what I do." He opened the door to see him out. "Now ain't that a relief?"

"Yeah," Jack said simply and left for his house.

James watched Jack leaving from his porch, he was really worried. Jack and Kate had barely come back and things were already starting to get complicated. James finally realized what he was feeling earlier when he saw Kate. He was worried! He was worried that wherever Jack and Kate went trouble followed behind. And James wasn't ready to give up his American Dream just yet.

----------------------

**Island - ****2007**

Ben walked into Cerberus' chamber, also known as the smoke monster. He was waiting to be judged for having let Keamy kill his daughter Alex. At the time, he thought that she was a sacrifice that the island demanded, but the island clearly had other plans.

The smoke surrounded him, downloading Ben's memory. It wanted to know who he was. Ben waited patiently as it analyzed him. Fear ran through his veins, Ben thought he was taking his last breaths. But then the monster just disappeared, and the memory of his daughter was what it left behind.

"Daddy?" She asked and her voice fulfilled the hollow of his heart.

"Alex," he called her name, he stared at her, he knew she wasn't even a ghost of his daughter, just a copy of his memory of her. But she was standing in front of him, exactly like he remembered her, calling him daddy again.

"Hi, Dad!

"Ohh, Alex," he said softly consumed by emotions, he was close to tears. "I'm so, so sorry. It was all my fault."

"I know." She said furiously, pinning him to the wall. "Listen to me, you bastard!" Her words scratched at his soul, he didn't want to hear her talking like this. He knew this wasn't Alex, but it looked so much like her that it hurt him. "I know that you're already planning to kill John again, and I want you to know that if you so much as touch him, I will hunt you down and destroy you. You will listen to every word John Locke says, and you will follow his every order. Do you understand?" Ben nodded his head, he was afraid of what it was going to do to him. "Say it! Say you'll follow him."

"Yes, I will." He whimpered. "I'll follow him. I swear."

And then it was gone, his memory of Alex was gone, and even though it scared him more than anything, he wished it would come back. He knew it was just a downloaded memory, but it was the closest thing to Alex he would ever touch again.

Ben had promised Cerberus that he would follow John, obey his every order. John seemed to be determined to become the leader, he was eager to talk to Jacob. Ben wasn't surprised, every since he had known Locke the man wanted answers. That's all John Locke was always after, answers. Patience wasn't on Locke's dictionary, and so Richard was now leading them to meet with Jacob.

"Beautiful day, isn't it?" Locke commented to Ben.

"Yes... so far." They kept walking as Ben spoke. "Richard had some concerns."

"Concerns about what?"

"This pilgrimage to Jacob makes him uncomfortable. He's expressed... reservations about whether or not you know what the hell you're doing." Ben was honest with Locke, after all, he was supposed to follow him.

"I appreciate you bringing this to my attention, Ben."

"I know we've had our differences in the past, John, but I'm here to follow you now. So if you need Jacob to help you reunite your people, then I'll do whatever…"

"I'm not interested in being reunited with my people." Locke cut him in mid sentence.

"What do you mean? You told Sun…"

"I know what I told her, but that's not why we're going to Jacob!" Locke informed him.

"Then why are we going to Jacob?" Ben asked curiously.

"So I can kill him!"

Ben stopped stunned as the rest of the people continued to walk past him. He didn't understand, he thought that Locke was on Jacob's side. Locke was on Jacob's list. Richard looked at Ben that moment, giving him a knowingly grin. Richard was right, John was going to be trouble, fortunately not for them. The war had finally begun.

----------------------

**Island - ****1977**

"Fresh off the griddle." Hurley said, putting down two plates on the table for Kate and Jack at the cafeteria. "And don't forget to try the dipping sauces. They really bring out the ham."

"Thanks, Hurley." Jack said

"So..." Hurley sighed taking a seat next to Jack. "What's going on with Sayid?"

"Don't know anything yet," Jack answered.

"What do you mean, you don't know anything? I thought you were at Sawyer's last night. What did he tell you?"

"He told me to leave him alone and let him do his job."

"And you're going to?" Hurley asked surprised.

"I'll talk to Juliet," Kate said, "see what she can tell me."

"Well, if Sawyer didn't tell you anything, why would Juliet?" Hurley pointed out.

"Well, why wouldn't she?" Kate asked

"'Cause they're together." Hurley said as if it was obvious.

"What do you mean, they're together?" Kate didn't even try to cover her disappointment, her reaction hurt Jack a little.

"'Together' as... they live together. Like, not as roommates. You know, 'together' like you guys were." Hurley explained, Jack tried to give him signs to stop babbling and making things even worse. But Hurley didn't have a clue. "I thought it was kind of obvious. I mean, who couldn't see that coming? But, dude, could you ever picture Sawyer with a baby?" He laughed as Kate looked at him stunned.

"They have a baby together?!" She asked in a slight high pitched tone.

"Yeah, they are like playing happy family now."

"Hurley," Jack called his attention and Hurley finally understood.

"Well, I guess I better... Go make some more waffles." Hurley headed back into the kitchen embarrassed.

"Did you know?" Kate asked

"Yeah!"

"Hmm," was all Kate said.

After she finished her breakfast she walked to Sawyer's house and knocked on his door. He opened the door, feeling a little uncomfortable about seeing her standing there.

"Hi!" She greeted awkwardly. "Can I come in?" James looked around the house, Juliet had already left for work, and took Rachel to the daycare. James knew that having Kate over when he was alone wouldn't look good, but he agreed anyway. They stood on the hallway. "What's this I hear about you and Juliet having a baby?" She asked straight to the point, her voice was a little altered.

He was confused for a moment. He didn't understand why it upset her so much. It had been three years since Kate and Jack left them behind. She couldn't possibly have waited for him all these years. He looked at her not understanding. Could she have come back expecting to resume their relationship?

"What about Clementine?" Kate asked angrily.

"What about her?"

"I don't understand what you're doing here. How can you give one child of yours unconditional love, while you don't even give a damn about the other?"

"With Clementine it was different!"

"How is it different?" He started to argue, but she cut him off. "You abandoned Clementine! How can you ever live with that?"

"Hey, I didn't abandon anyone. I didn't even know Cassidy was pregnant." He said in his defense.

"That's not an excuse, she told you she gave birth to your daughter and you haven't even visited her once! I can't understand how can you give one child so much and not even think about Clementine."

"You don't have kids, Kate, you have no idea what you are talking about!"

"I loved Aaron like he was my son! Remember that Claire left him in the jungle and just walked away? I took him out of this island, and I raised him as if he was my own. I loved him so much, but I had to leave him behind. Because he was in danger and I needed to save him. It broke my heart more than anyone has ever broken it before." She finished close to tears. "And I still don't understand how you can leave Clementine behind as if it wasn't a big deal!"

"Tell me something, Kate, if Claire hadn't gone missing, and you hadn't raised Aaron as your own. Wouldn't it be a hell of a lot easier to give up Aaron?"

"It's different!"

"Oh, so now it's different?!" He asked at the irony, his voice had become altered with the course of their conversation. "No, it's not, it's the same damn thing. Hell, Cassidy never told me she was pregnant, she showed up one day shoving a picture of a baby on my face, accusing me of walking out on the two of them. I don't know what stuff Cassidy put on your head, but she wasn't that high and mighty either. She wanted to use her money for a long con, she was stupid enough to get involved with someone like me. The whole time we were going out, she knew full well what kind of person I was. I didn't abandon her when she was pregnant. I stole her money, because that was what I used to do! Once she told me I had a daughter out there I sent her a lot of money."

"Oh, that's so sweet of you." She said sarcastically. "As if money is the same thing as a father figure!" Kate was almost shouting.

"Interesting that you come talking to me about a father figure! Tell me, Kate. How good a figure was your father for you?"

"How dare you?" Her tears were threatening to spill out.

"No, how dare you?" He shouted. "You come into my house, pointing a finger at me. Let me just tell you something, Kate. I don't know Clementine, I never met her. Do I feel guilty I don't even know when she was born? Sure as hell I do! But that is different because I didn't want her." Kate started to talk, but he kept on. "I didn't look at Cassidy with a long to make a baby with her, I didn't watch as her belly grew bigger. I didn't hold Clementine on my arms for the first as she gripped my big finger with her tiny had. That's how it's different!"

"I feel so sorry for Juliet!" Kate told him crossing her arms. "You are just going to walk out on them, like you did to Cassidy, like you did to me!"

"I walked out on you?!" He shouted again, surprised at her accusation. "You have a pretty good way of showing your appreciation for someone who helped you get off this island. If I hadn't jumped out of the chopper, anyone would never have left!"

"You know what I think, Sawyer? I think you jumped because you were afraid of what would happen between us if you didn't!"

"Oh, yes, somehow you're right." He said sarcastically, "I was afraid of falling in love with a woman that kept jumping from me to Jack. You gotta be thankful, Kate, I lowered you options." She felt the need to slap him on the face like she did the first time he insinuated that same thing. "You wanna know why it didn't work out between us? You wanna know why I'm so happy with Juliet the way I've never been with you? It's because you always want to be the victim. But I got news for ya, I like strong women!"

Kate stared at him breathing heavily. She was wondering whether or not she should keep on fighting with him. She wondered if it was worth it. But his words hurt her deeply. He had no idea what he was talking about. She never wanted to be a victim, things just happened to her, and he out of all people should know how hard life had been for her. She didn't respond to him, she didn't want to argue.

She let herself out, he didn't stop her, didn't call her, didn't follow her. He just let her go. At first she was mad at him. James was mad at Kate as well. She had no right to just come back into his life, barking accusations. He was a different man than the one she had known. And maybe that was the reason she was acting like this.

He started to feel guilt rising up, he shouldn't have yelled at her like that. He shouldn't have lost his temper. He rarely fought with Juliet, but not because they were a dull couple. It was because Juliet had something about her that always melted his heart and he couldn't stay mad at her for longer than an hour. And also because she made him promise her that they would never go to bed with unfinished business.

Maybe that was the reason for James's guilty, he just had forgotten how to stay mad at people, he wanted to go out, tell Kate that he was sorry he shouted at her. Tell her that she was right, that he was never a good father for Clementine. He wanted to make her understand that he is a different person now, and that if he had a second chance, he would have made things different with Cassidy.

He wanted to tell Kate that she didn't know James, she knew Sawyer.

----------------------

A burning Dharma van was speeding through the streets of the Barracks when it finally hit a house setting it on fire. Only a distraction to cover a prison break, Sayid had help of twelve year old Ben. Who was sick of living on this place and being abused by his alcoholic father. Sayid had taken advantage of the boy's eagerness to run away from home, so that Ben was the one who helped him escape.

Moments later as they rushed through the jungle and were stopped by Jin, Sayid would not let anyone come on his way. Not even an old friend. He had not come back to this island on free will, but he now believed to have been sent back for a purpose. Sayid knocked Jin unconscious and kneeled on the floor next to him while the teenager looked at them amazed.

"Whoa! Where'd you learn to do that?" Ben asked dazzled as Sayid picked up Jin's gun. "Come on." Ben said hurrying him. "We better go. He called LaFleur." Ben didn't want to wait for him to show up. The man always gave him the chills.

"You were right about me," Sayid said still kneeled on the floor.

"What?" The boy asked confused.

"I am a killer!" Sayid looked up and shot the young man the chest.

Sayid believed he had been sent back to the island, sent back in time, because he had a purpose. He was sent back in time to kill Ben before he became the man who was going to be responsible for all sorts of atrocities. Sayid lowered the gun and whipped a tear of relieve from his face and ran into the jungle leaving the boy to die.

Jin came to minutes after and drove young Ben back to the Barracks. Since the doctor was going to be at the looking glass station until Friday, James went to get his wife, to try and save Ben's life. She had told him that the situation didn't look good. They needed to think of a plan because things were already starting to crumble to their feet. And as Juliet fought for the boy's life James knocked on Horace's door.

They sat on Horace's living room as James told him everything. About flight 815, about the crash, about the future and the hostile purge. James told him the island started to move back and forth in time and that it finally stopped flashing and they ended up on the seventies. James told him that his people had finally come back to him, but things weren't exactly going according to plan.

"Horace, we are friends." James told Horace who was looking at him shell shocked. "You have to help me get my wife and baby out of this island!" James pleaded.

"Ok, calm down, Jim, I have something that I need to tell you." Horace told him.

"What's that?"

"Alvar Hanso, one of the Dharma Initiative co-founder, was a scientist. While he was growing up his father used to tell him bed time stories about an island and a shipwreck."

"The black rock," James completed him and Horace nodded his head.

"Hanso spent his life searching and studying this mystical place from his childhood memory. And one day, when he was sailing, he really thought he was going to die when a storm hit. But when the storm finally stopped his boat was sailing around an island. He was happy to had finally found the place, and now he had a second purpose. He wanted to know how to leave the island. He said it was like he was inside a snow globe."

"He found a way out, right? That's how he founded Dharma Initiative?"

"Yes, one day he discovered you can only leave the island with a certain bearing, and finally sailed back to the land of the living. Finding the island again was a little difficult, because the island is always moving, but after years of research Hanso and his team came up with an equation that would determine where the island would be in the future." James looked over at Horace excited that after three years of living on this island he had finally found someone who had an idea of where they were. "Jim, do you want to know what was Hanso's definition of the island?"

"What was it?" James asked intrigued.

"He said that it was a place between heaven and hell of which God doesn't know about!"

----------------------

_**Really long time ago**_

_It was dark, the night sky shined beautiful with starlight on that moonless night. Josiah sat by the fire watching the bright red and orange flames dancing to the sounds of the jungle; crickets and frogs, and other singing night creatures. Jacob came over to him, sitting by his side, staring into the fire instead of his face._

"_Our people have been worshiping these fake gods," Josiah said._

"_Yes, they have. They begun questioning your power as a leader, Josiah," Jacob informed him, "they don't want to follow your orders anymore, they believe that there are powerful gods on this place, they are saying that there is a bright light that will save them all."_

"_This is inacceptable!" Josiah said sternly. "God put us on this island in order to protect it, if our people are straying we must put them in the right direction."_

"_What do you suggest we do?" Jacob asked._

"_We must rebuild the temple!" Jacob agreed with a nod of his head. "Take everyone with you and we shall end this fake gods worshiping." _

_Jacob gathered as many people as he could and led them to the ruins of the temple. Once he arrived there, instead of the instruments to rebuild the temple he found a hole on the floor. The people looked around each other with curiosity. Jacob was the one who explored inside. As he walked aimlessly through the dark tunnels it led him to the chamber of one of the supposed gods that his people had been worshiping._

_It was a pillar of black smoke, but Jacob didn't fear it. His lord should protect him from anything. The smoke surrounded him, and what Jacob found in the discharges of light was every man's dream. Jacob found knowledge, enough to make someone crazy with delusions of grandeur. The smoke gave Jacob power, enough for him to defy anyone who might come on his way. _

_Jacob smiled at the smoke whose name he now knew was Cerberus, it roared powerfully, pushing itself loudly trough the tunnels like a snake. Jacob could hear the screams of the people on the ruins of the temple. Yes, they would rebuild the temple, but Josiah wasn't going to be the one to give out orders anymore. _

----------------------

**Island - ****1977**

"So what? Is this place death?" James asked, remembering Charlotte's definition of the island before she died.

"No, it's a place…"

"Between heaven and hell." James cut him in mid sentence. "Yeah, yeah, I know… But it doesn't make any sense!"

"It's like a state of mind, only it's not. God has no power inside the island as he can't see it. This place was where people were brought to be judged." James looked at him confused. "This is not death, but this is not life either. It's a whole new place, like a state of mind."

"So this guy Hanso, you say he founded Dharma."

"Yes, when he first came to the island, he discovered all the magical things that happened around here. He met the hostiles, the security system, and some other people too. Hanso was a visionary. He wanted to bring people to the island, to study the all miraculous consequences of the electromagnetism. He had a vision, of creating utopian civilization where people could discover great things, perhaps even time travel!" Horace looked deep into his eyes for effort. "But this is not what I had to tell you, Jim. Tell me, have you ever heard about Jacob?"

"Yes," James was reminded of Locke.

"Well, tells the tale that a long time ago there was a man named Josiah, he was the leader of the island natural inhabitants. Their primary purpose was to protect the island, from people like us, who weren't supposed to be here. Josiah started to lose power over his people once they started to worship fake gods. The people believed there to be two gods that protected the island, one was dark, one was light. The dark god protected the temple, a place people would go to get well. The light god protected the statue of Taweret, goddess of birth and rebirth, the statue protected pregnant women and guided the troubled souls. Josiah wouldn't tolerate that his people were losing faith in God so he sent Jacob, his secretary, to rebuild the temple ruins." Horace stopped his story.

"Well, did Jacob rebuild the temple?"

"He did, but something happened to him. When they arrived at the ruins, a miracle happened to Jacob, he gained knowledge and power. The forbidden fruit! Jacob was sick of following Josiah's orders, and he turned his people against him. And since that day Jacob has been playing god in this island. Josiah continued to age as Jacob continued to rule, he wasn't powerful enough to stop Jacob, and when his time came Josiah died."

Horace got up on his feet and started to pace around the living room, thinking about what to tell James next. "But there were some people that stood loyally by Josiah's side, his followers wanted change. And, Jim, I'm one of these people." James looked up at Horace. "So if you think that you being sent to seventies is just a fluke. Think again!"

----------------------

Horace told James that he needed time to think of plan to help him and his people get out of the island safely. In the mean time he told James to keep his friends out of trouble. In the morning James told Miles to make sure that Kate, Jack and Hurley stayed inside Jack's house, and that what he was doing as he loaded his rifle.

"You're telling us we're under house arrest?" Jack asked him offended.

"No, you're all free to leave whenever you want," Miles told him, "but I'll shoot you in the leg."

Jack sighed, "and whose idea was this?"

"Who do you think?" Miles asked with the slightest smirk.

"Sawyer's just doing his job, Jack." Kate told him noticing the furious look on Jack's face.

Miles looked at Jack and pointed at Kate to emphasize her point, he walked over to the table and watched curiously as Hurley inspected his hand. "What the hell are you doing, Tubby?"

"Checking to see if I'm disappearing."

"What?" Miles asked

"'Back to the Future,' man. We came back in time to the island and changed stuff. So if little Ben dies, he'll never grow up to be big Ben, who's the one who made us come back here in the first place. Which means we can't be here. And therefore, dude? We don't exist."

"You're an idiot," Miles said sitting on the table next to him.

"Am I?"

"Yeah. It doesn't work like that. You can't change anything. You're maniac Iraqi buddy shot Linus. That is what always happened. It's just...we never experienced how it all turns out."

"This is really confusing," Hurley looked up at Jack for explanation.

"Yeah, well, get used to it." Miles said in a welcome-to-my-life tone. "But the good news is that Linus didn't die, so that means the kid can't either. He'll be fine."

"Didn't look like he was gonna be fine," Kate pointed out worried, "what if you're wrong?"

"Well, if I'm wrong, then I guess we all stop existing, and none of it matters anyway then, does it?" Miles was interrupted by James that opened the door and rushed in.

"Doc, I need you to come with me," James said.

"Come with you where?"

"Juliet said the kid's losing blood, and we ain't gone none to put back in him. So we need you to show us where he sprung a leak."

Jack pondered at what James was asking of him, then he shook his head surprising everyone and said a stubborn, "No!"

"What?" James asked shocked.

"No, I'm not coming with you."

"If you don't come with me, Jack, that kid's gonna die!"

Jack looked at Kate and said, "then he dies."

James couldn't believe what he was hearing, Jack was a doctor, and he was refusing to help an innocent kid just because of who he was going to become. James left the house and Kate watched him through the window as he talked to Ben's father on the Infirmary porch. She walked into the kitchen.

"What are you doing?" She asked Jack.

"Making some sandwiches, I figured everybody'd be getting hungry by now."

"He's just a boy, Jack. You can't just let him die!" Kate pleaded.

"You heard Miles. We can't change what's already happened. This has nothing to do with me."

"Unless you're the one who's supposed to save him."

"Thirty years from now, that boy's gonna be a man... that locks me in a cage because he needs surgery. And then you're gonna come in and you're gonna beg me to operate on him because he's threatening to murder Sawyer. I've already done this once. I've already saved Benjamin Linus, and I did it for you, Kate. I don't need to do it again."

"This is our fault. We brought Sayid back. We caused this," she said feeling guilty.

"You know, when we were here before, I spent all of my time trying to fix things. But... did you ever think that maybe the island just wants to fix things itself? And maybe I was just... getting in the way?"

"You know, I don't like the new you." She said shaking her head in disbelief. "I liked the old you, who wouldn't just sit around and wait for things to happen."

"You didn't like the old me, Kate." Jack said with a sarcastic tone.

"Then I guess I never liked you at all!" She said turning and walking out of the house.

"Hey! Where are you going?" Miles asked, but she ignored him and slammed the door shut.

She marched to the infirmary, informed one of the nurses she wanted to help little Ben, and that she was a universal donor. Juliet was glad to see her. They were left alone, as Juliet cleaned Kate's arm, preparing to draw blood.

"This might hurt for a second," Juliet said sweetly sticking a needle into Kate's skin, she looked away. "Good, very brave!" Kate smiled at her, the way Juliet was talking to her made her feel like a little kid. "So James told me that Jack wouldn't help, but he didn't say why." Juliet said securing the needle with tape.

"If I understood why Jack does what he does, I sure as hell wouldn't be sitting here."

Juliet smiled at her understanding, she removed her glove looked into Kate's eyes and asked. "Mind if I ask you a question?" Kate shook her head. "Why did you come back, Kate?"

Kate took a long breathe, she didn't want to talk about it, especially not with Juliet, but somehow, she needed to get it off her system. "Do you remember when we were in the jungle and I dislocated your shoulder?"

"How could I forget when it hurt so much!" She smiled at Kate trying to joke.

"Do you remember when it attacked us?"

"What? The smoke monster?"

"No, the bright light thing," Juliet nodded, "I heard whispers that night, at the time I didn't know what it meant, I thought I heard 'If you leave him and come back, everything is going to be ok.'" Kate looked away terrified at the memory, then looked back at Juliet. "Did Sawyer tell you about Aaron?" Juliet nodded again, "I lost him in the supermarket, and that day I finally understood what the whispers meant. So that's why I'm here." Juliet didn't understands her, "I had to leave Aaron and come back, it's the only way to make things ok." Kate explained. "What did you hear? What did the bright light tell you?"

"It told me," she said in a low whisper, "that if I let go and died, everything was going to be ok." Kate looked at her not sure what to say, "when you got back to the island, was everything ok?"

"Not yet…"

"Then when it comes my time, when I understand what the whispers mean. And I die without a fight, how do I know that everything is going to be ok?" Kate was still at loss of words.

----------------------

"Where are you taking me?" James asked following Horace through the jungle.

He had just got out of the infirmary and told Juliet not to count with Jack's help when Horace asked James to walk with him. They never walked outside the barracks, unless it was a Circle of Trust business they needed to deal with. Now however this seemed to be anything but a Dharma related business. James was about to repeat the question when Horace stopped in front of a cabin.

"Son of a bitch, this place does exist!" James commented shocked.

"Yeah, I built this cabin two years ago. A little place for me and Amy, you know. When we need a break from the DI. Now, we have been using it for something else." Horace said and walked up the steps of the house and opened the door to him.

Once inside the cabin James found a man sitting on a chair, and a little boy around ten years, sitting on the floor playing with a car toy. The man looked over at James and smiled, James recognized him as the man he once met in a bar at Sidney, only younger and not much older than James himself.

"Hello, James!" Christian said and pointed to chair next to his. "Why don't you take a seat?"

"Dad, can I go play in the woods?" The boy asked sounding a little bored.

"Of course you can, Jack." Christian said and the boy smiled.

"Come on, Max, let's go!" Jack called clapping his hands and whistling, a yellow Labrador that was lying in the corner of the shack barked. The dog got up and followed the boy outside. James watched in shock.

"I don't understand, how come he doesn't remember this place?" James asked Christian.

"For him this is a vacation on a tropical island," Christian explained, "he doesn't remember that he was born here either." James was beyond astonishment.

"James, I explained your situation to Christian." Horace said, he was still standing near the door. "And he thinks that he knows how to help everyone."

"Are you a Josiah's follower too?" James asked Christian.

"Yes," Christian answered, he scratched his face and sighed. "There are a lot of us, but we mingle with the hostiles and the Dharma Initiate. Nobody really knows we exist, although there are suspicions."

"So you are an Other then?" James deduced since he never saw him walking around the barracks, and James knew all the faces of every men and women.

"No, I'm a spinal surgeon," Christian told him, "I was banned from the island when I had a daughter with an outsider. Her name is Claire," James frowned at the familiar name, "long story! Anyway, when Jack was two years old, my wife decided she didn't want to continue living here, she thought that it was too dangerous for her and the baby if they ever found out that I was a Josiah's follower. That's why Jack has no recollection of the island whatsoever. I started to keep traveling back and forth from the island, until the day they found out about Claire and had me banned."

"Ok, you say you can help me get off the island."

"Yes, I know what you have to do to stop Jacob and therefore save all of your friends, and the rest of humanity."

"Tell me then?"

"You're gonna have to die." Christian said matter-of-factly and James chuckled. "The world is in danger, James. You need to help us!"

"You're crazy!" James said beginning to lose his temper. "You all are!" He got up, "you're a bunch of crazy lunatics! I'm not gonna die for you. I'm not gonna leave my wife and daughter, the two most precious people on my life because of a war that has begun millions of years ago. This is not my fight!"

"I'm sorry you feel this way, James." Christian said disappointed.

"Jim, you need to think about this," Horace pleaded, "this is supposed to happen, you need to do this!"

"Do you realize what Gandalf over there is asking me to do?" James asked almost shouting pointing at Christian, Horace nodded his head and James sighed. "What I need to do is take my wife and daughter out of this rock." James said calmer. "Can you help me with that Horace?" James looked seriously into Horace's eyes.

"Yes, of course, Jim!"

"Then once you figure out what to do with me give me a nudge." James turned to leave. "I should have listened to her," he mumbled as he left, "should have gotten out of this island three years ago!"

Horace stared at James's retrieving back in silence. "Maybe we got the wrong LaFleur!"

"I sure hope so!" Christian glared up at Horace, he had fear in his eyes.

----------------------

Juliet breathed easy now that little Ben was stable. She really thought that she was going to lose him when he went into hypoxic shock. Thankfully Kate's blood had helped him, not for long Juliet knew, there was still a leak, and she had no idea how to fix it. She needed Jack or Ben was going to die. She reached over Ben, stroking his face, he fluttered his eyes open.

"Mrs. LaFleur!" He smiled weakly, but it was replaced by fear, he looked lost and scared as he started to hallucinate, inside his head he could hear a man's voice. _'You're my prisoner and you are mine!'_ The voice kept echoing in his mind.

"Look at me." Juliet told him, cradling his face on her hands. "It's all right, it's okay, I'm here. Look at me."

"I'm scared, mum!" Juliet was taken aback by his choice of word to address her, she was longing to her that word coming from the lips of another child she had the pleasure to call her own. Never had she expected to hear it on the lips of the boy who would one day become the man she hated the most.

"It's all right, don't worry" Juliet said after swallowing a knot on her throat, "patience Ben! It will be ok, soon!" He smiled again, the man's voice was gone.

"Will you stay with me?"

"Yes, I'm here, I'm not going anywhere."

"Mrs. LaFleur, what did one snowman said to the other snow man?" Ben asked looking at her, he would always come visit her and tell her a new joke he'd just heard, so it didn't surprise her he would tell her one when he was delirious.

"Smells like carrot!" She said not sure how she knew the answer, she just wanted to make sure the boy forgot he was in pain. Ben smiled at the joke and then sleep took over him.

She needed to save Ben, she knew that in thirty years from now he would become a psychopath, but now he was just a scared little boy. She couldn't let him die, she knew the hostiles would know how to help him, and she knew Richard would never let Ben die. She rushed out of the infirmary to ask for Kate's help.

Juliet sent Ben's father out to the medical station to get some supplies they didn't have at the infirmary. Just to get him out of the way. Then she told Kate her plan of taking Ben to the others, Kate was willing to help, but she didn't want Juliet to come along. Juliet felt a hint of bitterness on Kate's voice when she told her that James would kill her if he found out that Kate involved Juliet on this. And Kate was probably right.

Then Juliet asked James to help Kate take Ben to the others, Kate would never manage it on her own, she would probably get herself killed or worse. James was mad at first, but he agreed to help her because Juliet told him that no matter what, it was wrong to let a kid die.

Yes it was wrong to let a child die, to let anyone die, especially for a doctor who had taken an oath to help people regardless. That was why she had walked into the Jack's bathroom, Jack had barely heard her coming in as he was washing his hair. Juliet was in the verge of tears as she watched the man go about his day as if nothing was happening.

Jack turned off the water, and walked out of the shower. His first reaction was embarrassment when he stood stark naked in front of Juliet. But her eyes were focused on his eyes only, and he reached automatically for a towel, wrapping it around his waist.

"I needed you!" Juliet said with disappointment apparent on her voice.

"I'm sorry?" He asked, pretending not to understand her as he put on a shirt to cover his still wet chest.

"That kid was bleeding out. You're a surgeon, and I needed you!"

"That kid is Ben." Jack said coldly, Juliet of all people should understand him.

"That's not Ben yet. He's just a kid."

"Juliet, I'm sorry. I can't help you." He insisted thinking that she was here to convince to go help Ben out.

"I'm not asking for your help, Jack. You made it pretty clear you weren't interested. It's up to Sawyer and Kate now." She informed him, still sounding disappointed.

"What?"

"She's trying to save him, and I sent James after her to help, because they actually care!" Her voice cracked a little.

"I came back here because I care, Juliet. I came back here because I was trying to save you."

"We didn't need saving." She told him, it was bad enough that Jack had left them behind even after he had 'promised' to save everyone. And now he had the audacity to come back, screw over the life they had built there and still call himself a hero. "We've been fine for three years. You came back here for you. At least do me the courtesy of telling me why."

"I came back... because I was supposed to."

"Supposed to do what?"

"I don't know yet!" He said firmly.

"Well, you'd better figure it out!" She held back tears and left, she refused to cry in front of him.

----------------------

James carried Ben in his arms through the jungle, Kate was right behind him, following him in silence. They were coming up to a creek, when she noticed that James was starting to get tired.

"You know, I can take him for a while," she offered.

"Sure you can!"

"You know, his father said that you think Ben broke Sayid out."

"Kid'll do almost anything if he's pissed off enough at his folks." James said laying Ben down on the ground near the creek.

"Is that why you asked me to take care of your daughter?" Kate asked kneeling on the floor next to them. James looked at her, he seemed hurt. "Look I'm sorry about yesterday, I shouldn't have yelled at you."

"I'm sorry too, I understand that you would think I abandoned Clementine, and at some level I did, but I'm not the same person I was three years ago."

"I know," Kate said giving Ben water from the canteen she brought with her.

"What's she like?" James asked

"Clementine?"

"Yeah, Clementine."

"Oh, she's beautiful." Kate smiled at the memory of the five year old little girl that called her auntie Kate. "Looks just like you when she smiles. She's growing up fast. Already has a little attitude."

"I bet you and Cassidy had a lot to talk about."

"Yeah, I admit that she has always tried to change my mind about you. You know, she is the one that thinks you were worried about what would happen if you hadn't jumped off the chopper."

"You and me would've never worked out, Kate." He said tenderly, he didn't want to fight anymore. "I wasn't any more fit to be your boyfriend than I was to be that little girl's father."

"You seem to be doing all right with Juliet," Kate said, she wanted to know more about their relationship, deep inside, she was jealous. Jealous because they are happy together, have been for three years while her relationship with Jack didn't last longer than six months.

"Yeah. I've done a lot of growing up the past three years."

"Hands up!" They heard a man shouting from the jungle, several rifles cocked as the Others came out of the jungle. Kate put her hands up.

"Do not move." The man ordered. "I said don't move. This is a violation of the truce. You're over the line."

"We know." James said irritated. "This kid's been shot. That's both of our problems. So unless you want to go to war, you're gonna take us to Richard Alpert, and you're gonna do it now."

The Hostiles didn't like the arrangements, but they agreed to let Richard decide what to do. So they walked along with them, as James carried Ben and Kate walked by his side scared of the situation. Richard appeared as if from nowhere.

"Hello there, James." Richard greeted him.

"Where the hell did you come from?"

"You asked my people to bring you to me. Here I am." Richard finally notices the boy on James's arms. "Is that Benjamin Linus?"

"You two know each other?"

"What happened to him?" Richard asked worried.

"He was shot," Kate explained.

"And who might you be?"

"She's with me." James answered

"And why are you here?" Richard asked

"'Cause we need you to save his life. Can you?" Kate asked straight to the point.

"If I take him, he's not ever gonna be the same again." Richard warned.

"What do you mean by that?" Kate asked suspiciously.

"What I mean is that, he'll forget this ever happened, and that... his innocence will be gone. He will always be one of us. You still want me to take him?"

"Yes!" Kate answered. She just wanted the little boy to live. Richard took Ben from James.

"Richard..." A Hostile called his attention stepping forward. "You shouldn't do this without asking Ellie. And if Charles finds out…"

"Let him find out. I don't answer to either of them!" Richard said walking away from them.

He carried little Ben into the jungle for a little less than half an hour until he came up to a stone structure. The temple! He looked down at Ben before pushing back into the wall, making it open. He carried Ben inside. After the temple healed the boy Richard took him to their camp, he knew it was only a matter of time before Widmore found out. But he didn't really care.

"What happened?" Ben asked waking up as Richard lowered him on the bed.

"You were saved," Richard told him.

"Are you going to let me live here now?" Ben asked hopefully, but Richard simply shook his head.

"Ben," Richard begun, "this is not the side that you wanna be. I need your help, to take down a very powerful and evil man called Jacob, will you help me?"

"Yes," Ben was weak, but his eyes gleamed excited.

"You are a good boy, Ben. But you will need to do horrible things if we want to win." Ben nodded his head. "And you're going to have to be patient!"

----------------------

**Note #1: **It's obvious that Max is actually Vincent, I got this idea when I saw mobisode "So It Begins", when Christian asked Vincent to go wake up his son, which is the very first scene of the pilot of Lost. So maybe Vincent was Jack's dog when he was a kid, who would have guessed huh? We all know that Vincent is not your run-of-the-mill yellow lab.

**Note #2:** On this chapter when Ben was delirious, after Sayid shot him, he heard a man's voice in his head, I got the dialogue from episode 3.20 "The man behind the curtain". It's a transcript of the whispers Ben heard in the jungle, right before he saw his mother by the sonar fences. What I wanted to accomplish with this is that the whispers he heard were the conversation between him and Juliet, as if it was an echo of the future. It also explains Ben's assumption that Juliet is his. As if the Man's voice was the echo of his future obsession with Juliet. Man, it sounds like it's me who is delirious now!!!

**Full transcript of the whispers from "The Man Behind the Curtain"**

Man: "Look at me"

Ben's mother: "Look at me. It's all right, it's okay, (-It's okay, **echo) I'm here. Look at me."

Man: "Ben, You're my prisoner and- (inaudible, but most likely: "and we are ready" or "and you are mine". Perhaps both in overlay.)

Man: demonic laugh.

Ben: "I'm scared mom."

Mom: "It's all right, (-don't worry **Over lay**) patience Ben."


	11. You’re the Key

**You're the Key**  
[Chapter 10 – Part 11 of 12]

**Author's Note:** Juliet has being living Ben's dream for far too long. It's time to wake up! Longest chapter so far, but it's the climax, I'm sure it's worth reading. Pay attention because this is important, flashbacks are in italics!

**Chapter Summary:** "Catch a falling star an' put it in your pocket, save it for a rainy day..." Rainy days are approaching, while mothers think about the little falling stars of their lives. Difficult decisions must be made.

----------------------

**Island - ****1977**

Juliet stared at nothing lost in thought. James reached a hand out to her, she looked up at him, his worried look was a mirror of hers yet in so many different levels. Yes, she was worried about what would happen to their lives now that everything had turned upside down, and he was probably worried about that too. But Juliet knew something really important that he couldn't even imagine.

She took his hand, and after witnessing the look he gave to Kate earlier it was nice to feel the heat of his hand on hers. It was somewhat comforting.

"Time to go!" He whispered, and she agreed, she got up to her feet and went with him to pack their things.

Juliet went into the nursery, to pack some of Rachel's stuff; the girl was sleeping on the crib, unaware of what was going on around her. Juliet looked at her and she felt a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. It had started with the return of Jack, Kate and Hurley, and it only got worse. Today it felt like she had a hole on her stomach.

She was mad at Miles, if he had done as James had told him to, none of this would have happened, but Phil had found the tape of James and Kate taking Ben to the hostiles, and to save their butts James had to improvise. He knocked the man unconscious, tied and gagged him and locked him on the coat closet. Of course they couldn't hide him there forever. It was only a matter of time before everyone found out.

James had a plan, they would either commandeer the submarine and get away from the island, or get into the jungle and start from square one. Jin would never leave the island if there was a chance that Sun was there, and Hurley wasn't too happy about leaving the island when he had just got back.

But then there was Daniel, who had come back to the island last night and already had some crazy ideas on his mind. He wanted to talk to his mother, who was a hostile. Jack wanted to help Daniel find his mother because he said they didn't belong there, while James thought he belonged there just fine.

Juliet watched it in silence, it was like the old times, Jack put Kate in the middle of him and James, and Juliet felt sorry for her. And then James looked at Kate, and it hurt Juliet. She wasn't sure why it bothered her, but she didn't want James looking at Kate like that. Maybe she was being unreasonably jealous, maybe he just wanted Kate support. Or maybe she was right to be jealous, maybe he still had feeling for Kate and Juliet was just his second best.

She had reacted without thinking; Juliet just wanted to get Kate away from James. She gave them the code for the sonic fences. It was only seconds later that the feeling started to bug her, she didn't want James to feel something for Kate, she didn't want things to change. But things were already changing and there was nothing she could do.

Juliet finished packing enough of Rachel's things when she went into their bedroom to pack some of her clothes. James was there they were moving fast, they needed to get out of there before word got out that Dharma Initiative had been infiltrated.

"Jules, don't worry, I talked to Horace, he'll help us out." He told her, she was too hurt, she simply nodded her head. They heard someone knocking on their door. "You called it the minute those Yahoos got here. I shoulda listened to you. You can say, 'I told you so.'"

"Maybe after we get to the beach," she couldn't cover the hurt on her voice.

"Hey," he whispered holding her to look at him, he knew she was mad at him, he knew her too well. "You still got my back?"

"You still got mine?" She asked him bitterly.

He didn't have time to answer her question when the Alarm sounded in the distance. It was happening, they heard Radzinsky shouting and banging on their door. Maybe if James played along everything would be fine, he just needed to buy them sometime. He and Juliet went into the living room and opened the door.

"LaFleur!" Radzinsky said panting as he entered the house, along with a bunch of his friends, they all had guns. "Where have you been?" The man was completely altered.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Take it easy, Stu." James told him. "What the hell's going on?"

"I just got shot by a physicist," Radzinsky explained, "and the new recruits are helping him. We've been infiltrated."

"That's ridiculous," James tried to calm him down, "now just calm down for a minute. We can talk about this." They heard a thud.

"What was that?" Radzinsky asked with fear.

"It sounded like it was from outside." James tried to get them the hell away from their house, but then they heard pounding on a door.

James felt fear rising when Radzinsky and the rest of the men cocked their guns, James still tried to play along. In silence they could hear muffled shouting. Radzinsky followed the sound and opened the coat closet, Phil looked at him shouting desperately, he turned around pointing his gun as James and Juliet.

"Get down on the ground now!" Radzinsky ordered shouting.

"Stuart, please," Juliet begged, "Rachel is sleeping on the nursery, just let me make sure that she is ok!"

"I said now!" He screamed, Juliet and James complied putting their hands up in the air. James looked over at his wife, she was crying quietly.

----------------------

_**Island – 2004**_

_Juliet picked up a CD from her collection__. Put it on her CD player, Petula Clark's familiar tune begun to play. She stared at herself in the mirror, she was holding back tears, she could still hear it in her mind as the submarine exploded in front of her._

Fly away, fly away

There's a cat in the window

And he's watching all the birds go passing by

He'd love to fly out the window

Go where the wind goes

And so would I

Like that cat in the window

Who keeps wishing for some wings to take a ride

I'd love to glide to a rainbow

Off where the clouds go dancing by

And if I could fly

You wouldn't find me hanging around

Watching the birds go by

_One tear rolled down her face, she felt betrayed by her body, she didn't want to cry, didn't want to give him this satisfaction. And the worst part of it all was that he never broke his promise, it wasn't his fault that John blew up the submarine, it wasn't his fault, but she hated him even more just because it wasn't his fault. _

Yes the cat in the window

Has a tear in his eye

_She heard someone knocking on the door. She wiped her face and went to answer it. She found him there. He didn't even ask if he could come in he just wheeled himself inside her house._

I should leave today, fly away

Why should I stay like the cat in the window

Who keeps watching the birds

Go by from the window

_She stared at him and he stared back at her, the hall was poorly lit just by a faint light bulb. He looked like he was sorry, but she could read him like a book. She could feel the smug smile on his face. She could hear him telling her that she would never leave the island._

If I could fly though

You won't find me

Don't even try to

_Juliet turned off the stereo and sat at her table, she moved mechanically, trying to disengage herself from the scene. She could read him so well, but she wouldn't give him the power to read her again, not anymore. She was done with him._

"_I have something I need you to do." Be begun, she noticed he had a mask on his lap. "Tomorrow morning we are going to gas the barracks, we'll be moving out, and you're going to stay behind. Shephard already trusts you, we need to make Jarrah and Austen trust you too."_

"_Why?"_

"_Because I need you to go with them to their camp, you're going to infiltrate them, and find out if Austen or any other women is pregnant."_

"_And how do you suppose I do that__?" She asked coldly._

"_Drag Austen out into the jungle, handcuff yourself to her, and when she wakes up you tell her you have no idea what happened. Tell her that you were on your house when a canister came in through the window. If by any chance she catches you, just admit it that you were doing this to earn her trust. That you wanted her to think that you were in this together."_

"_That's a nice plan you got there, Ben." Juliet said after sighing. "You just forget to tell me the part where you convince me to go along with it."_

"_Juliet…"_

"_I don't want to infiltrate them, I don't want to work for you. No matter how much you promise me to let me go home, I won't fall for it this time." She paused, "I don't work for you anymore, Ben!"_

"_Ok, Juliet, I'm gonna be honest with you. You know about Jacob, don't you?" _

"_No, don't you put Jacob in the middle of this," Juliet said a little annoyed, "I don't care if he wants me to follow your orders, I don't care about his lists. If I'll go to hell because I won't follow his orders, I don't care! I'm done with this."_

"_You respect Jacob because we've brainwashed you." Juliet looked surprised at Ben. "That's the kind of person that Jacob is! He is using his power to play God with humanity. And even though it may come as a chock to you, Juliet, the work that I'm doing, it's to try and stop him! Why do you think I got cancer? Jacob is getting suspicious!"_

"_Why are you telling me this?" She asked confused._

"_Because I need your help!" He said firmly, watching the emotions playing on her face. "If we are going to stop Jacob, you need to infiltrated them, earn their trust. Because I'm going to move the island, and when that happens, Claire will go missing and you will move through time. That mark on your back means that you are not one of us Jacob's followers. And so you will travel back in time together with the Oceanic 815 survivors. And I'm only telling you this because you're the key, Juliet! The variant, and you will save us all!" Juliet looked away, she wasn't sure if she believed him. "So tell me, Juliet. Tell me what is going to happen tomorrow. Let's go over it again."_

"_I know what to do," she answered annoyed, more at herself that she was considering what Ben had just told her._

"_Let's go over it again, just to be sure."_

"_I drag Austen out into the jungle, handcuff myself to her, then tell her I was gassed just like she was."_

"_And if she catches you in the lie?"_

"_I'll admit to it. Tell her it was the only way to earn her trust."_

"_Good. What then?" _

"_They'll take me back to the beach." Juliet stopped to think. "I know you want me to go there, but after everything we've done to them, it's going to be a problem."_

"_We've activated the implant in Claire, she should be symptomatic in the next 48 hours. By the time you get to that camp, you'll have a nice big crisis to solve."_

"_I'll need supplies." _

"_Pryce is already on his way. He'll hide the case at Ethan's old drop-point. Tell Jack, that you can save her. He trusts you. Are you alright?"_

_Juliet took time to answer him, what he just told her, what he was asking her to do was insane, and she was afraid to trust him. "__I'm fine." _

"_See you in a week!" He said handing Juliet the mask. She watched him leaving from the corner of her eyes, frustrated that he could still control her. She reached for the mask on the table, throwing it on the floor furiously. She hated Ben so much. _

----------------------

**Island - ****1977**

Kate watched Jack and Daniel talking, this was crazy, she shouldn't have come along with Jack, she was tired of listening to him. She should have stayed with Sawyer, she had a feeling that Juliet would have killed her had she stayed. And here she was, with a crazy doctor and a lunatic physicist. And what was it that Daniel said?

'_You gotta understand, Jack, this is our present. When we met, did I have a scar on my neck? No. 'Cause I hadn't been shot yet. We can't be so naive as to think nothing can happen to us. Any one of us can die, Jack.'_ Kate remembered as they stopped in the middle of the jungle.

"You need a gun to go talk to your mother, Dan?" Jack asked intrigued.

"You don't know my mother, Jack." Daniel joked.

"You ready to tell me why she was wrong?" Jack asked remembering that Daniel told him that his mother was wrong when she told Jack it was his destiny to come back to the island. "Why we don't belong here?"

"In about four hours, the DHARMA folks at the swan work site," Daniel begun to explain, "they're gonna… gonna drill into the ground and accidentally tap into a massive pocket of energy. The result of the release of this energy would be catastrophic. So in order to contain it, they're gonna have to cement the entire area in, like Chernobyl. And this containment… the place they built over it… I believe you called it 'the Hatch.'" Jack was interested to finally get some answers. "The Swan hatch? Because of this one accident, these people are gonna spend the next 20 years keeping that energy at bay... by pressing a button... a button that your friend Desmond will one day fail to push, and that will cause your plane, Oceanic 815, to crash on this island. And because your plane crashed, a freighter will be sent to this Island. A freighter I was on and Charlotte was on and so forth. This entire chain of events, it's gonna start happening this afternoon. But..." He stopped to make it more dramatic. "We can change that. I studied relativistic physics my entire life. One thing emerged over and over. Can't change the past! Can't do it! Whatever happened, happened! All right? But then I finally realized... I had been spending so much time focused on the constants, I forgot about the variables. Do you know what the variables in these equations are, Jack?

"No," Jack chuckled at the man in front of him, of course he had no idea what Daniel was talking about.

"Us," he emphasized, "we're the variables. People. We think. We reason. We make choices. We have free will. We can change our destiny. I think I can negate that energy under the Swan. I think I can destroy it. If I can, then that hatch will never be built, and your plane... your plane will land, just like it's supposed to, in Los Angeles."

"And just how exactly do you plan on destroying this energy?" Kate asked stunned at Daniel's crazy plan.

"I'm gonna detonate a hydrogen bomb!"

They arrived at the Others camp. Kate didn't like what Daniel had in mind. If his plan worked, then it would be as if it never happened, as if she never met Jack or Sawyer. It would be like she never met Aaron, and Claire would give him up for adoption, just like she would do! Kate would lose Aaron forever and coming back to the island would have been in vain.

"This is a mistake." Kate told Jack her concern. "He's talking about erasing everything that's ever happened to us, Jack. It's insane."

"We disappeared off a plane in mid-air and ended up in 1977. I'm getting kinda used to insane."

"Wish me luck." Daniel said ready to walk into the Others camp.

"Wait," Kate tried to stop him, "hey!"

"No, let him go. Let him go!" Jack stopped her, and they watched Daniel go.

Daniel cocked his gun. "Back up," he ordered, "step away. It's okay. Nobody move. I only want to speak to Eloise. Where is Eloise? Come on. Where is she?"

"I'm sorry, but Elo…" Richard told him calmly. "She's not here right now. Do we know each other?"

"It doesn't matter! I need you to take me to Eloise." Daniel insisted.

"I… I already told you she's not here. Let's just take it easy."

"Where's the bomb, Richard?" Daniel asked impatiently. "The hydrogen bomb that I told you people to bury… where is it?"

"Listen to me. Lower your gun, and we'll talk. Okay? Nobody has to get hurt here. Just put the gun down."

"I'm gonna give you three seconds. One..."

"Don't do this!" Richard warned him.

"Two..." Daniel never got to three, when a rifle reported. He was stunned. He looked down and saw blood coming out of his midsection. He grunted faintly and then fell to the ground.

"Why did you do that?" Richard asked alarmed at the blonde woman who shot Daniel.

"He had a gun on you," she explained.

"He wasn't gonna shoot me, Eloise!"

"Eloise," Daniel said her name between gasps of air. "You knew. You always knew." He panted, hurt, not only by the bullet hole, but by the woman who shot him. "You knew this was gonna happen. You sent me here anyway." He accused her.

"Who are you?" She asked confused, she had no idea who the man was.

"I..." he said weakly. "I'm your son!" He gasped for air one more time and then he died.

----------------------

_**Los Angeles – 2005**_

_Kate pushed the shopping kart through an isle at Babies "R" Us. They had just been rescued, the press called them Oceanic Six. She had lied to the whole wor__ld, said that she had given birth to Aaron on the island of Membata, that she was six months pregnant when the U.S. Marshal apprehended her in Australia. And because of that she earned freedom until the duration of her trial._

_She made faces at the three months old baby boy on the shopping kart, he giggled at her. Kate felt relieved that the baby didn't seem to miss his mother. It was a good thing that he knew her since Kate used to always spend time with Claire. _

_Kate put the kart to a stop and looked at the merchandise in front of her. "Diaper Genie," she read aloud, "what the heck is this?" She asked Aaron in a cute voice._

"_It's a baby diaper disposal system." Kate heard a woman's voice saying in an Australian accent. Kate turned abruptly and was startled to see Claire standing there in a clerk's uniform. "It's ok, Kate, don't be afraid." _

_Kate picked Aaron up in her arms holding him protectively. "You're here for Aaron, aren't you?" Kate asked with panic. "You have no right to came back for him you abandoned him!" Claire watched Kate with amusement and hurt. _

"_I didn't abandon him!__" Claire explained, "I had something important to do." _

"_More important than being a mother to your baby__?"_

"_Believe me, Kate. It IS very important, and someday you are going to understand just how important it is and you will have to leave him too!" Claire __used a device on her hand to put price tags on a product, Kate stared at her surprised. "I'm here to tell you I'm glad you taking care of Aaron for me. I couldn't have picked someone better." Claire stopped what she was doing and looked Kate deep in the eyes. "Just do me a favor, Kate. Please! Do you know the lullaby 'Catch a Falling Star'?" Kate nodded her head. "My dad used to sing that to me when I was little. Would you sing it to Aaron for me?" Claire asked sadly. _

"_Of course" Kate whispered in the verge of tears. Claire reached out and stroked Aaron's chubby cheek, the boy recognized her touch. _

"_Bye, Aaron." Claire__ said and walked away. _

_Kate watched her leaving dumbfounded. She later looked for Claire in the store, but could__ not find her anywhere._

----------------------

**Island - ****1977**

Once James and Juliet were captured, Radzinsky warned Horace about their situation while they headed for the Security Center in the Barracks. James and Juliet were being tied in place to chairs while a security tape of James helping Kate cross the sonar fence with young Ben was playing in one of the monitors. Horace stood at the control panel, while a bruised Phil and two other members of security stood guard with rifles.

"I want to know what you people did to my kid!" Sawyer grunted as he was handcuffed to a chair. "Where is Rachel?!"

"She is fine, James," Horace said calmly, "Amy has her."

"I ask the questions!" Radzinsky shouted. "That woman… where is she now?"

"Call my lawyer!" James smart answer was met with a hit across the face. Horace was furious with Radzinsky approach, he stepped between them in James defense, but Radzinsky flinched away.

"Stuart! What the hell are you doing?" Horace asked

"I'm getting answers." He answered and turned to James. "Where is she?!" He asked as James recovered only to be hit again, James grunted with pain.

"Hey. Hey! Stop!" Horace tried to make Radzinsky stop. "Damn it, stop. That is an order. I'm still in charge here."

"No, you were in charge, Horace. But if we're gonna protect our people and all the work we're doing here, you don't have the stomach for what happens next." Horace relented in shock as Radzinsky asked for Phil's help. The younger man pushed James into the control panel desktop face-first and pushed his face toward the monitor. "Okay, Jim, last chance. You tell me where she is..." Radzinsky pushed the pause button freezing the image on Kate. "...or so help me God, I will kill you!"

James didn't answer, he just grunted and groaned with pain. Radzinsky was pissed at James's silence, Phil brought him back to the center of the room, and Radzinsky returned to hit him with no mercy. Juliet was forced to watch as James took each blow bravely, she knew he would die before he said anything, and this scared her even more.

"Hey!" Juliet cried out, afraid that Radzinsky would never stop.

Radzinsky stopped after Juliet pleaded. "You ready to talk now?"

James's face was soaked with blood as he whispered, "nope!" Juliet shivered when Radzinsky hit James again, he simply grunted.

"Believe me, I'm getting tired of this too, Jim. So why don't you tell me where your girlfriend took the boy? She bring him to the Hostiles? You know where they are?"

Sawyer didn't answer, he didn't look up either. Instead her groaned and spit at Radzinsky's feet. Radzinzky was infuriated he punched James across the face with a right hook so powerful that James's whole chair toppled over. Juliet screamed as she watched the man she loved landing hard on the floor with a grunt.

"Aah! Stop! Please!" She begged

"You want me to stop? Then tell me what I want to know!"

"Stuart, please." She said with a breaking voice. "We have known each other for three years. We are not bad people! We are not here to hurt you!"

"Juliet... don't!" James ordered weakly, he sighed before continuing. "Whatever you tell them, they ain't gonna believe you." James panted. "It's only gonna get more people hurt."

"What are we doing, man?" Horace asked picking James and his chair off the ground. "Beating him is pointless. Okay? He's not gonna talk."

"I can make him talk," Phil suggested. Radzinsky let the junior security officer go ahead with his plan. The younger man gazed at James evilly with a half smirk, then whirled around and punched Juliet hard across the face. She cried with pain and surprise.

"Son of a bitch!" Sawyer shouted madly, he struggled to break free, he wanted to punch him so badly.

"Easy. Easy." Horace tried to restrain him as Juliet recovered, she looked at James, it was if he could hear her telling him she was ok, but the blood coming out of her mouth made James even angrier.

"You're a dead man, Phil. I'm gonna kill you!" James promised

Another security officer entered with a Dharma Initiative composition book and said. "Mr. Radzinsky? There's still no sign of Miles or Jin. But the recruits from last week... I got their sub's manifest from Amy. There were three last-minute add-ons. They were the two people that shot at you, Shephard and Austen, and one guy we can't track down. He's gotta be a part of this."

Radzinsky read the manifest, "who the hell is Hugo Reyes?"

"He's the fat guy!" Phil told him with disdain.

"Ok, then go find them!" Radzinsky shouted the officer nodded his head and went out the room as Dr. Chang burst into the Security Center barking orders to Horace.

"You need to evacuate the Island of all nonessential personnel, and you need to do it..." Dr. Chang looked around and finally noticed that the LaFleurs were handcuffed to chairs and beaten. "What the hell is going on here?"

"Aren't you supposed to be at the Swan right now, Chang?" Radzinsky asked. "We're supposed to break ground in less than 20 hours."

"We're under imminent threat. If we start drilling, there's a high probability of a cataclysmic accident."

"We are drilling and on schedule," Radzinsky shouted.

"Horace, you're in charge." Dr. Chang said, but Radzinsky cut him.

"He's not in charge anymore. This is my decision, and it's been made. We keep working."

"Put us on the sub," James asked weakly, Radzinsky looked at him. "He's right. It ain't safe. Put the women and children on the sub and get them the hell out of here. And if you put me, Juliet and Rachel on the sub with them..." James paused before continuing, he looked over at Juliet for support. "We'll tell you anything you wanna know. You okay with that, sweetheart?"

"Absolutely," she answered with a cracking voice. She knew James had a plan, he would never tell on his friends. And she just wanted to get Rachel out of the island safely.

"You want on that sub, Jim?" Radzinsky asked thrusting a Dharma composition book and a pencil into Sawyer's lap. "Draw me a map. I wanna know exactly where the Hostiles are."

Sawyer looked briefly at Horace, then he picked up the composition book and begun to draw a map to the black rock. Hours later they were being escorted into the submarine, Juliet was holding Rachel in her arms in relief. James smiled at the two of them and he told Juliet his plan of buying Microsoft and betting on the Cowboys in the '78 Super Bowl.

He felt guilty that he had put Juliet through all of that, that if he had never asked her to stay she wouldn't have been on this position. But she assured him she was glad he talked her out of leaving the island three years ago. So he would make sure that from then on he would give her the life she deserved, he would do anything for her.

They helped Juliet and Rachel climb down into the submarine James mounted it after them, but took one last good look at the Island. "Good riddance!" He said reminiscing all the good times he spent there. The best years of his life.

----------------------

**Island - ****2007**

Ben set on the beach, looking out into the ocean. Even though it didn't show on his face, he was worried and afraid. But above all else, Ben was angry. He hoped that the ocean would calm him as he thought about his earlier conversation with Locke.

"_So you're willing to do whatever I say, no matter what it is?" Locke had asked when Ben told him that the smoke monster asked him to follow Locke's every order. _

"_Yes," Ben has answered simply. _

"_Well, then. I guess I won't have to convince you after all." _

"_Convince me to do what?"_

"_I'm not going to kill Jacob, Ben. You are!"_

"Everything alright?" Locke asked sitting beside him.

"I was enjoying some alone time." Ben said, not even trying to cover his irritation at Locke's presence.

"You see what's behind you?" Locke asked and Ben turned to find the hatch door embedded in the sand.

"It's a door. How about that?" Ben said sarcastically.

"Not just a door, Ben. It's the door to the hatch. Where you and I first met." Ben looked at him, he wanted to tell him something, but decided against it and looked away. "Do you mind if I ask you a question?"

"I'm a Pisces," Ben joked, but not because he cared about making John laugh, he just wanted him to get a clue and leave him alone.

"What happened that day at the cabin? When you first took me to meet Jacob?"

"Well, you clearly already know that I was talking to an empty chair, John." Ben was tired of the life he was living. "That I was pretending." He stressed the word pretending. "Which is not to say that I wasn't as surprised as you were when things started flying around the room."

"But why would go to all the trouble to make something like that up?"

"I was embarrassed." Ben confessed t sincerely. "I didn't want you to know that I had never seen Jacob. So yes, I lied. That's what I do." Ben felt numb as he confessed to Locke that he was really a liar. Ben was disappointed with his life.

"Alright, then."

"Why do you want me to kill Jacob, John?" Ben asked before Locke left.

"Because, despite your loyal service to this Island, you got cancer. You had to watch your own daughter gunned down right in front of you. And your reward for those sacrifices? You were banished. And you did all this in the name of a man you'd never even met. So the question is, Ben, why the hell wouldn't you want to kill Jacob?"

Locke's word kept echoing in his mind. Ben had no idea who this John Locke was, but he was certain he was not John Locke. But one thing he knew for sure, the time was finally here, but nobody had ever told him that he was going to be the one to actually kill Jacob. He sat there for a long time, just pondering when Richard sat by his side.

"He wants me to kill Jacob," Ben informed Richard, who looked at him surprised.

"You know, Ben, I'm starting to have a bad feeling about this."

"What do you mean?" Ben looked Richard in the eye.

"What if we are on the wrong side, Ben? What if all this time we have been manipulated?"

"Well, I haven't gotta a choice. I was told to follow Locke's order."

"Told to by whom?"

"Who do you think?" Ben's creep eyes gave Richard the shivers.

Later that night Richard tried to prevent Ben from going along with Locke inside the statue. He made up a stupid rule about Jacob only receiving one visitor at a time which Locke noticed he was lying through his teeth. But Richard then realized that was how things were supposed to happen, he could only pray that it would make things right.

----------------------

**Island - ****1977**

"What are we gonna do when we get to Ann Arbor?" Juliet asked handcuffed to a table in front of James who was holding Rachel.

"We ain't going to Ann Arbor," James said playing with the baby's hand.

"What do you mean?"

"These guys ain't cops." James looked over at her. "They got no authority over us back in the real world. So once we dock, wherever we dock... we're free."

"Real world." Juliet said chuckling. "I don't even know what that means anymore."

"Hey, come here," he whispered reaching out his free hand to hold hers. "Whatever happens, I got your back, remember?"

"I love you!" She said and he smiled.

"I love you back."

"Hold on! Don't close the hatch!" James recognized Phil's voice from outside the submarine. "Horace wants her off the Island, too. We'll let Ann Arbor deal with them." James and Juliet watched as Kate climbed down the stairs into the submarine. "Actually caught her coming back into town. Cuff her over there with the others."

"Hey," Kate greeted panting as an officer handcuffed her at the table near Juliet.

"Hey," James mirrored, looking around at them. Juliet tried hard not to let her annoyance show, but Kate's presence really bothered her.

"Welcome aboard, everyone." The submarine captain voice came over the speakers. "We will be doing some system checks offshore here before heading out into the open ocean and submerging to our operational running depth. You should be receiving your sedatives and then we will escort you to your sleeping berths." Kate looked around anxiously. "Have a nice rest, and we'll see you on the other side."

"We have to get out of here!" Kate told them

"Outta here?" James asked surprised. "We're underwater. What the hell are you doing here? How'd you get caught?"

"I came back to get you."

"Came back to get me for what?"

"Where's Jack?" Juliet asked a little jealous at the woman who had stormed back into her life saying she just came back to get James.

"Jack," Kate stressed his name looking over at Juliet annoyed, "is on his way to blow up a hydrogen bomb!"

"Why the hell would he do that?" James asked confused.

"Does it matter?" Kate snapped at him. "We have to stop him."

James looked over at Juliet for permission. "Sorry, but I'll pass." He told Kate, shocking her.

"Did you hear what I just said?"

"Yeah, I heard you. You just don't get it, Kate. We were happy in Dharmaville 'til y'all showed up. But now that's all over. So we're gonna drink our O.J. and take our chances in the real world. Jack wants to blow up the Island, good for Jack."

"No, you don't understand me, Sawyer! Daniel said that if Jughead's nuke is set off, the island will explode, which will kill everyone there. And if the island doesn't exist our plane will never crash. We'll be sent back to 2004 and we'll land safely at LAX. I'll be taken into custody, and you'll be back to being a conman. And it will be like we never have met!" Kate explained to them. She looked Juliet deep in the eyes, "you tow will never be together!"

"If… if…" Juliet stuttered, "if Daniel is right, what will happen to Rachel?"

"He didn't say, but…" Kate said sympathetically, "my guess is that she was born in the seventies, she belongs in the seventies." Juliet looked worried over at James, he nodded his head as if telling her he got it all under control.

"Daniel doesn't know what he is talking about," James pointed out.

"Well, at least Jack thinks he does." Kate told them, Juliet was still worried.

"Remember when they left us behind, Juliet? Remember that Daniel explained to us, they were out of the radius, that's why they didn't travel through time with us?" Juliet nodded her head, Kate watched them in silence. "We'll be out of the radius, whether or not Jack succeeds it won't matter to us, we'll be safe. If Jack wants to blow the damn island, that's his problem." Juliet still wasn't sure. "He left us behind!" He reminded her, Juliet swallowed a knot on her throat.

"Sawyer, if Jack does this he could kill everyone on the Island!" Kate told him just how serious the situation was.

"Yeah, I heard that part."

"And you're okay with that?" Kate asked shocked at his coldness.

"You ain't hearin' me, Kate. I made a choice, and I'm stickin' to it. I decided to leave, and I'm leavin'." James told her.

An officer arrived holding a tray of glasses. "Alright, here's your sedatives." As soon as he was close enough to Juliet she attacked him, she brought his face to meet the steel of the table with force and then she kicked him unconscious.

"What the hell did you just do?" James asked surprised as Juliet used the keys she got from the man's pocket to unlock herself and Kate.

"We decided to leave this Island, James, we did." Juliet said working on her handcuff. "And now we're going back."

"Are you serious?"

"We can't just let those people die. Jack left us behind, James. He did, but I won't, because I'm different." Sawyer sighed, realizing that she was right. "What about you James. Are you going to come help us save our friends, or are you going to stay there and whine about it?"

"Unlock the damn cuffs!" James ordered defeated.

----------------------

_**Los Angeles – 2007**_

_Ben was lighting some candles at the church when he heard her voice behind his back, he turned to look at __seventy year old Eloise. "I remember when you were just a young man, eager to run away from home, longing to turn to the other side as a refuge from the nightmare you were living." He stared at her emotionless. "What are you doing out of the island, Benjamin?"_

"_Widemore killed my daughter, I got out of the island to kill his!"__ Ben's voice was free of any emotion._

"_Still impulsive as always, I see."_

"_You don't __tell me about impulsive, Eloise," he said calmly, "when you were the one who turned your back on your people because you shot your son dead." He paused waiting for some kind of reaction, but she remained as calm as him. "Apparently, we are not that different after all. We both are responsible for our children's death, and we both turned to the other side for revenge!"_

"_Except that you have always been a__n imposter! And I didn't switch sides because I wanted revenge. I did because I realized that I wasn't on the good side." Ben raised an eyebrow. "Kidnapping children because you people couldn't give birth to your own. Killing people that weren't on the lists just because you were told they were flawed. Who are we to decide who lives or die?" Ben didn't answer. "Jacob is not God, and if he isn't stopped now then God help us all!" She paused, waiting for him to say something. "So which one is it?" _

"_What?" Ben didn't understand her._

"_Do you want to burry yourself in revenge and ask me where you can find Penelope? Or you want to know what you have to do to save us__?" She asked_

"_What can I do to help us?" Eloise smiled proud of his choice._

"_You know very well that __Juliet Burke is in the seventies, and so is my son. Soon he'll come up with a plan to explode the island, but you and I both know there's only one person who can do it."_

"_Juliet!" _

"_Exactly, but she needs a motive to do it, and right now, I doubt she will throw __away all she has got for nothing. They need to go back, all of them, Shephard, Reyes, Austen, Jarrah."_

"_What about __Kwon, doesn't she need to go back?" _

"_She does, but she won't be sent to the seventies.__"_

"_Why not?" Ben asked intrigued._

"_Because she isn't in our side!__ She's working for Widmore. You must hurry, Ben, you need to be back before Juliet succeeds, or else it will all be for nothing!"_

----------------------

**Island - ****1977**

Rachel played with her mother's hair while Juliet held her. They were sitting in front of cabin, where Rose and Bernard had been living for the past three years. Who would have guessed that they would have survived alone out in the jungle? Alone just the two of them. Juliet felt happy for them, they had built a nice home, they scavenged food and took care of Vincent. They had a pretty nice life. Like Bernard had said, they were retired.

"Well, I hate to rain on your parade, but..." James told them, "your condo's about to go ka-blooey."

"Jack has a bomb," Kate explained.

"Who cares?" Rose said a little irritated.

"Excuse me?" Kate didn't understand Rose's reaction.

"It's always something with you people," Rose said, "now you say Jack's got a bomb. And what, you guys are all gonna try to stop him, right?"

"Yeah, that's right." Juliet said in an isn't-it-obvious way.

"We traveled back 30 years in time, and you're still trying to find ways to shoot each other?" Rose's words echoed on Juliet's mind. She was right on some level.

"Rose, we just need to know which way the Dharma Barracks are from here so we can stop Jack, or you're gonna be dead. We all will." Juliet tried to explain to them just how dangerous the situation really was.

"So we die," Rose said, "we just care about being together. That's all that matters in the end." Juliet smiled at their sweet love, she kissed her baby on the cheek and looked over at James, but he was looking at someone else. He was looking at Kate.

James thought about what Rose had said, he frowned furious, the woman was right. All that matters in the end is being together with the people that you love. And if Jack and Kate hadn't come back, none of this would have happened. He looked over at Kate, he knew that she was happy, she was getting what she wanted. He wanted to tell her just how much she had screwed up his life.

But Juliet didn't know that. She watched him looking at Kate as if in slow motion. James still had feeling for Kate, she knew he had. She felt alone, she held Rachel tighter close to tears. This couldn't be true, it couldn't be happening. She was happy for three years, but it all had been just a fool's paradise.

Rose's voice brought Juliet back to the present. "The Barracks are 5 miles that way."

James thanked Rose, said his good bye and started to leave. "Let's go!" He said, Kate followed him into the Jungle. Juliet watched them go feeling empty.

"Rose, can you take care of Rachel for me?" Juliet asked giving Rachel to her.

"Sure," Rose said picking her up.

Rachel looked at her mother, her little eyes pleaded for Juliet not to leave her behind. "Keep her safe, please!" Juliet asked holding back tears.

"I will, honey!" Rose promised.

Juliet breathed deeply, she gave her daughter one last kiss on the forehead, Juliet let her tears fall. As Juliet walked away to follow James and Kate the baby reached out her little arms to her, Rachel didn't want her to go. But Juliet needed to. Juliet didn't understand why her baby was acting this way, she usually didn't suffer from separation anxiety, and she was always good with strangers, but maybe Rachel just sensed that something was out of the ordinary.

As she walked in silence through the jungle Juliet thought of Ben, he was right. She needed to help Jack blow up the island. Because if she did, then time would reset, James would be sent back in time, he wouldn't remember ever meeting her, and would be free to be with Kate and love her without feeling guilty_. 'If you love someone, you should know how to let them go!'_ Juliet told herself.

'_What about Rachel?'_ She asked herself. What would be of her daughter if they reset things? Juliet hesitated for a while, but she needed to go through with it and help Jack. All she had was hope. Hope that everything was going to be fine. That was what Juliet was told.

----------------------

Eloise felt a painful sensation on the back of her head, she opened her eyes tentatively, she was lying on her bed on her tent. How could that be? The last she remembered, she was helping those people get to the Jughead bomb, because the man she shot, the man who claimed to be her son, had said he was from the future. And those people were his friends.

Daniel had a journal with him, and she recognized her handwriting in the inscription. _"Daniel, No matter what, remember, I will always love you. Mother" _How was it her handwriting if she didn't remember writing it? The man named Jack explained to her that she hadn't written it yet. Eloise was confused, because she felt something odd when she looked at Daniel's dead body. And she wanted to help these people.

"What happened?" Eloise asked getting to her feet. Richard was moving around the tent, packing some of her clothes.

"I knocked you out and brought you back here." Richard answered matter-of-factly.

"What?" She asked angry. "Why would you do something like that?"

"I was protecting my leader!" He stopped packing and looked at her serious.

"And as you're leader you should have respected my decision to help them." She was mad at him. Couldn't he see that she needed to do this?

"I…" He begun, but his words caught on his throat. "I'm sorry, but I couldn't just let you die."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm tired of my life, Eloise, that's why!" He confessed regretting saying every word that left his mouth. He wasn't supposed to do this, but he couldn't control himself. It was more powerful than him. "Do you think it's easy?" He was also losing control of his voice as it broke. "Do you perhaps think it's fun not getting old? Let me tell you something, it's a burden! It's not normal. I watch little babies getting born, I watch them grow, I watch them fall in love, I watch them have babies of their own." A tear started to form on his eye. "I fall in love too, Eloise, and I lost count of how many times I watched the women I love getting old and die."

"I tell myself, don't get close, let the feeling come, make its thing and then go away. And it does, but it just comes back, in a different face, on different level. And I pray that it doesn't always have to be this way. But that never changes it's always THE SAME." He shouted, Eloise saw the tear falling down his cheek. "So yes, I disobeyed your orders, Eloise, because I can't watch another woman I love die. I can't keep doing this. I don't know how to move on anymore!"

They were silent, just staring at each other. Richard was mad, he was really tired of his life, he wished he would just die already. Eloise didn't know what she was feeling, something she had never felt before. And she moved, almost automatically towards Richard, her loyal advisor. He had always been the advisor, never the leader.

She held his face in her hands, stroking his skin. She felt electricity coming from him. She understood how he felt. And for the first time she noticed his feelings. For her he had just been like a god, someone who loved everyone equally, someone who would never labor romantic interest on anyone. She kissed him tenderly when she realized he was just a person like everyone else.

No one is a god except for God himself!

His lips trembled in her mouth. She could tell that he was afraid, she was afraid as well, because she had never felt so whole. She pressed herself into his arms and he embraced her, she opened her mouth and he explored it with his tongue savoring her sweet taste. He felt the little lump on her belly when she was so close to him. It was a weird sensation, but it felt so good, what would he give to be her baby's father?

He stopped the kiss abruptly, getting away from her. She looked at him, confused, hurt, bewildered. "Why are you doing this?" He asked weakly, altered by the kiss. "What about Widmore?" _'The real father of her baby'_ he thought to himself.

"I don't know! I don't understand it either…" She answered lost in her own emotions.

Richard breathed deeply, trying to shake off his feelings. "You need leave the island!" She looked at him confused at the sudden change of subject. "It's coming, Ellie, it is going to happen, don't you understand?" She shook her head still confused. "Well, one day you will. Now we need to get you off the island."

"I'm not leaving!" She insisted. "Not after what just happened."

"Yes you are!" He held her in his hands, a boy on the bed beside hers started to stir and moan, she hadn't noticed him before.

"What happened to him?" She asked Richard, kneeling on the floor to stroke the boy's face.

"The same thing that happened to your son, he was shot by someone who had no idea what they were doing." Richard answered looking at the two of them. "You're going to take him out of the island, and you'll raise him as your son." Eloise looked up at him even more confused. "Believe me, the boy needs a mother!"

"Is he Daniel? Is he the man I just shot?"

"No, his name is Benjamin, Daniel is the baby you are carrying. Which is another reason you need to leave NOW!" Richard told her forcefully.

"Ok," Eloise finally agreed, letting Richard pick the boy up on his arms as she picked the bag he had packed for her. "But how do I leave the island?"

"We are going to the orchid," he told her, "Horace will let us through."

----------------------

**Island - ****2007**

Locke and Ben walked inside of the four toed statue, the room was cavernous supported by large columns several feet in diameter, with a fire burning in the center. Ben was mesmerized with the Egyptian writings on the walls, there was a beautiful tapestry, that seemed to be telling a story. Ben had no idea what it said, but it was so beautiful he had to touch it.

"You like it?" A man asked in the shadows, Ben assumed he could only be someone. "I did it myself. It takes a very long time when you're making the thread, but, uh... I suppose that's the point, isn't it?"

"Hello, Jacob!" Locke greeted.

"Well, you found your loophole," Jacob sounded defeated. Remembering that Josiah, his enemy, once told him that he wanted to kill him so badly that one day he would find a loophole.

"Indeed I did," Locke agreed, "and you have no idea what I've gone through to be here."

"Have you met before?" Ben asked with envious bitterness.

"In a manner of speaking… Do what I asked you to, Ben." Locke ordered, Ben looked at him stunned playing with the knife on his hand.

"Benjamin..." Jacob called his name and Ben looked at him in the verge of tears. "Whatever he's told you, I want you to understand one thing. You have a choice."

"What 'choice'?" Ben asked hurt, looking over at the man in front of him. Ben felt broken, just like he was when he was twelve years old.

"You can do what he asked, or you can go, leave us to discuss our... issues."

"Oh..." Ben's voice betrayed him. "So now, after all this time, you've decided to stop ignoring me. Thirty-five years I lived on this island, and all I ever heard was your name over and over. Richard would bring me your instructions, all those slips of paper, all those lists, and I never questioned anything." Ben paused remembering all his years of loyalty. "I did as I was told." His voice failed as he stressed every word. "But when I dared to ask to see you myself, I was told, 'You have to wait. You have to be patient.' But when he asked to see you? He gets marched straight up here as if he was Moses." Ben was shaking. "So... why him? Hmm? What was it that was so wrong with me? What about me?!"

"What about you?" Jacob asked with disdain.

"Oh," Ben whispered nodding his head knowingly. "Well..."

Ben took a long breath to gather enough courage then he moved towards Jacob and stabbed the knife on his chest. The man grunted and panted as he crumbled to his feet. "They're coming!" Jacob whispered.

"What?" Locke asked and Jacob gagged. "I can't hear you."

"They're coming!" Jacob said louder.

Ben watched Locke pushing Jacob into the fire, Jacob burned to death as a black smoke moved up into the sky.

"Who's coming?" Ben asked

"Jacob's desperate plan B." Locke explained. "He thinks that Kate, Jack, Sayid and Sawyer are coming for him. Just like Ilana who is outside right now, telling everyone that I'm not really John Locke."

Ben glared at him, "who are you?"

"I'm Josiah, nice to meet you!"

"Well, are they coming?"

"No, Ben, it's finally over. Jacob is dead, I'm dead, and this will just be a memory for you, a dream." The island started to shake.

"What's happening?" Ben asked alarmed.

"It… is happening. Juliet, my card up my sleeve, is saving you all. Jacob never saw it coming. He thought that I destroyed his statue out of spite, the one we're standing on its shadow right now. He was so naïve!" Josiah chuckled. "He thought that I did it because I didn't want his people to procreate. And the irony of it all is that he brought her here, because he wanted Juliet to solve the problem of the dying mothers. Jacob was so easily manipulated!" Ben looked at him with fear on his eyes when a bright light illuminated the room. "Don't worry, Ben. You are about to wake up from your nightmare!"

----------------------

**Island - ****1977**

James managed to stop Jack for a few minutes, to try and take his mind out of blowing up the island. They were sitting in the middle of the jungle, Jack was telling him that it was his destiny to be there. "I don't speak 'destiny'." James told him. "What I do understand is a man does what he does 'cause he wants something for himself. What do you want, Jack?"

Jack thought for a while. "I had her." He confessed. "I had her, and I lost her."

"Kate?" James asked surprised. "Well, damn, Doc, she's standing right on the other side of those trees. You want her back, just go and ask her."

"Nah, it's too late for that. Your five minutes is up." Jack got up to leave, so did James.

"Jack... if what you're doing even works, you and Kate will be strangers, and she'll be in damn handcuffs."

"If it's meant to be, it's meant to be." James was pissed at the way Jack was acting, he was only thinking of himself, he wanted to erase the past three years of his life just to forget about Kate. But what about everybody else?

"Well, I guess there's nothing I can say that's gonna change your mind."

"No, I guess there's not." Jack said and James punched him on the face.

"Who the hell do you think you are?!" James asked furious as Jack tried to recover his balance. "You think you can come here and do whatever the hell you want? I had a life here!" James pushed Jack into a three.

But James was already beaten from Radzinsky early interrogation, Jack soon had the lead on their fight. James was on the floor while Jack stood over him, at the rate things were going James didn't care about fairness, he kicked Jack between the legs, and with a log hit him in the head. Jack fell on the floor and James pinned him down.

"Will you stop?" James asked, but Jack didn't answer. "Will you stop?!" He asked again more forcefully.

"No," Jack answered weakly, James cried with frustration and begun to punch him again.

"James! Let him go." Juliet ordered as she arrived.

"He wouldn't listen." James explained. "I had to. He won't stop!"

"That's because he's right," Juliet told him.

"What?!" James asked confused, letting go of Jack.

"He's right, James. We have to do this." Jack got up to his feet, he was wobbly and disoriented.

"What are you talking about?!" James asked confused at Juliet as Jack walked away unnoticed. "You're the one that told me to come back here and stop him! What happened?!"

"I changed my mind," Juliet said simply and then walked away.

James's hands still throbbed, but not as much as his heart. He was angry at Jack, for destroying the peaceful life he had here, and somehow the painful sensation of his wounds felt good, knowing that he had beat Jack some. But what hurt him more than anything was that Juliet agreed with Jack. She was walking in front of him in a quick pace he was having a hard time to keep up. But he needed to know.

"Stop!" James ordered, but she kept going on. "We gotta talk about this!"

"There's nothing to talk about, James. We have to let Jack do what he came here to do."

"Well, maybe you should have told me you had a change of heart before I brought him out in the jungle to kick his ass." He said more bitterly at her for being at Jack's side.

She turned to face him with a sudden movement and asked, "would that have stopped you?"

"No!"

"Well, then I'm glad you finally got it out of your system." She turned again and resumed walking.

"Hey! Hey!" He grabbed her arm annoyed at her snappiness toward him.

"You, don't." She warned him to let her go. He stood in front of her. Normally he wasn't this harsh to her, but she was being unreasonable.

"I need you to tell me where all this is coming from." He pleaded her for the truth, letting go of her arm when he knew she wasn't going to run away, Juliet didn't run away from things. "I mean, one minute, you're leading the great sub escape, and now you're on board with blowing up the damn Island?" He looked deep into her eyes, he was close to tears. "I got a right to know why you changed your mind." He panted trying not to cry, he felt betrayed.

"I changed my mind when I saw you look at her." She confessed, he begun to deny it, but she shook her head. "Don't. Don't." She said, looking away hurt. "Don't. Don't." She whispered feeling weak.

"I don't care who I looked at." He said firmly, a little angry at her for being so jealous. "I'm with you!"

"And you would stay with me forever if I let you, and that is why I will always love you." She said, her heart beating with love and despair. She was hurting so much.

"You don't…"

"What we had," she cut him, "it was just for a little while, and just because we love each other, it doesn't mean that we're meant to be together." She thought about the happiness they shared over the last few years, it felt like a sand castle that some mean kid destroyed just for the fun of it. "I mean, maybe we were never supposed to be together. So if Jack can make it that… that none of you ever come here, then he should."

"Why you doing this, Juliet?" It hurt him that she was willing to throw everything they had into the wind.

"I..." Her voice broke. What was she supposed to say? She couldn't tell him she was doing this for, because she wanted him to be happy he would never agree. "If I never meet you, then I never have to lose you," she lied!

She looked away and then walked past him. She didn't want to forget him, but if that was the price she had to pay, then be it. She just didn't want him to be tied up to her for all his life, and she knew he would if this didn't happen. Juliet needed to let him go, she could be so selfish with the man she loved the most. She took a long breath.

James watched her walking away. She was really going to do this, he couldn't believe that she cared so little about what they had. He couldn't believe she would let Jack blow up the island, let him erase Rachel from her life. But deep down inside he was sure that Jack was wrong, that he would only kill himself. Jack had to be wrong!

As they walked in silence through the jungle Jack came walking towards them. With a pack on his back that James presumed was carrying the bomb. Jack looked like a soldier going to the war. James noticed him looking at Juliet, how dare him look at her like that in front of him? His eyes then locked with his. He hated Jack so much.

"See ya in Los Angeles!" James told him with sarcasm.

Minutes later James was standing by the van, with the rest of his people. He barely talked, he barely listened to anything that was being said. He was truly hurt, he wanted to cry, but he put on an angry façade instead. He wished that Juliet would tell him she was wrong, that she didn't want to erase him and Rachel off her mind.

"Can I ask you something, LaFleur?" Miles asked him.

"There ain't no more LaFleur, Enos." LaFleur was just a fantasy, of a life James would never have again. "Go ahead, shoot."

"Has it occurred to any of you that your buddy's actually gonna cause the thing he says he's trying to prevent?" James looked over at Juliet, he wanted to know what she thought of that. "Perhaps that little nuke is the incident? So maybe the best thing to do... is nothing?" Nobody answers him, everyone was lost in thought. "I'm glad you all thought this through!"

They heard a jeep approaching on the distance. "What's going on?" Juliet was the first to get worried.

"It's Phil," Jin explained, "that's the road to the Swan."

"If they see Jack, they're gonna kill him!" Kate told them, worry apparent on her voice.

"What do you think, Blondie?" Yes, he was still mad at her, but he loved her, and he would do anything for her.

"Live together, die alone!" James hated that Juliet had chosen that phrase, when it was Jack who had said it so many time. He wished she had said that it was every man for himself.

But he made her a promised, that he would stay with her no matter what, and he would do anything she asked him to, even if it broke his heart. Hurley started the van, and they soon arrived at the Sawn site, for Jack's sake, because he was already in trouble. It didn't take long for them to overpower Dharma people, it happened when James put a gun in Phil's head and asked everyone to drop their guns.

"All right, you can come out now, Doc!" James shouted angry that Jack was having his way and that he was helping him. But James kept telling himself that he was doing it for her. "Hurry up and do your business." Jack came out from the place he was hiding."Turn that damn thing off!" James ordered Dr. Chang, he obeyed and pushed some buttons, but the drilling didn't stop. "What's the matter?!"

"It won't shut down!" Dr. Chang said nervously.

"Why not?!" James asked worried.

"Something's pulling the drill down." Dr. Chang explained.

"We hit the pocket!" Radzinsky explained alarmed.

"Hurry up, Doc!" James shouted, couldn't he see they didn't have much time? "What are you waiting for?! Drop it!"

Jack held the nuke, he was beginning to hesitate, he wasn't sure if he should continue. James let go of Phil, there was no point in keeping him hostage, it was all over now. James looked over at Juliet, she smiled at him, as if saying that everything was going to be fine. He wanted to smile back, but he felt sick to his stomach. Jack finally dropped the nuke.

James closed his eyes, embracing himself for what would happen next. He kept his eyes shut for long seconds, but nothing seemed to happen. He opened his eyes tentatively, they were still there, nothing had changed.

"This don't look like LAX," James said under his breath.

Then it all happened, he heard the clanking of metal, heard it banging. He looked around himself and saw that everything metal started to be dragged into the hole of the hatch. The gun slipped away from his hand, and a tool box knocked Jack over. He saw Radzinsky trying to get way from there, James heard people screaming, as metal creaked and rattled along with a powerful magnetic humming.

"LaFleur!" Phil called out his name, and pointed a gun at him.

But Phil didn't live up to kill James as a metal stick stabbed his chest. Something knocked James on the head, blurring his vision, he was sitting on the floor, the noise was distant on his mind, he only heard screams, until Kate called his name.

"Sawyer, help!" Kate yelled.

At the mention of his name James snapped into action. He saw Kate struggling to hold a chain, and Juliet was holding the machinery. His heart sunk as he understood what was happening, Juliet was being dragged into the hole. He rushed over to Kate, he held tight to the scaffold that was now stuck on the opening of the shaft, he reached down and grabbed Juliet's hand before she fell. She looked up at him relieved.

"Where do you think you're going, Blondie?" He asked half grunting, she was much heavier than usual and he was fighting to hold her in place. Juliet shouted in pain, James saw what was holding her down. The metal chains Kate was holding were wrapped around her waist.

"Kate! Help me get those chains off!" Sawyer sounded bossy, but Kate didn't hesitate to obey. "Hold on! You hold on! " He told Juliet, she looked up at him, desperation gleaming in her big blue eyes. Kate lay on the floor and reached inside the shaft almost falling too, but the chains were still out of her reach, Juliet was considerably taller than her.

"I can't!" Juliet blurted out crying. "I can't get it off."

"I got you." James told her firmly.

The chains pulled Juliet even harder and she grunted. "I can't!" Kate said crying.

The sound of metal creaking was everywhere, it was so scary.

"Juliet! No!" He said trying not to cry. "Don't you leave me!" He begged.

"It's okay," Juliet said painting.

"Don't you leave me!" He begged again when she started to slip from his fingers.

"I love you," Juliet said between sobs.

"No, you don't let go!"

"I love you, James."

"Don't let go."

"I love you so much!"

"No! No, don't let go!" He shouted and she slipped from him, she began to fall rapidly.

"Aaaaah!" Juliet scream echoed in the deep of the shaft.

"Juliet! No!" Sawyer cried out, the weight of Juliet now gone, and a feeling of emptiness was arousing deep inside him.

He finally allowed himself to cry. His life was over! James didn't care anymore. Kate was saying something to him, but it didn't make any sense, she was grabbing him, trying to pull him away, maybe she was afraid he was going to fall too, maybe he should fall. He didn't want to live anymore.

Jack pulled him way, and the drill finally gave away, falling into the hole; the death hole that took away his Juliet. He imagined the machinery falling, smashing her beautiful body. He wouldn't even have a reminder of her to bury. God was finally punishing him for what he had done in his past. The earth started to shake, and soon a bright light burned his eyes.

----------------------

_James felt the earth shaking, but the light wasn't that bright, in fact, it wasn't even bright it was dark, and he was sitting in some kind of chair. He noticed that his eyes were closed, he opened them up __and realized he was sitting on a plane, and it had just hit turbulence. He looked around confused, he had tears on his eyes, but he didn't know why._

_Then someone started to scream, shrieking loudly in a high pitched tone. James looked annoyed at the source of the scream. There was a blonde chick, in her mid twenties. She was standing in the middle of the plane, screaming at the top of her lungs while her eyes were squinted shut._

_Two flight attendants and the guy at her side tried to calm her down. "This plane is going crash!" She yelled._

"_Calm down, Shannon." James heard the guy telling her._

_There was something familiar about their faces, something familiar about this plane. James didn't even remember how he ended up there, but that wasn't what seemed to bother him. He got up to his feet. The girl no longer shrieked. James walked to the back of the plane, not really sure why._

_His eyes fell on a woman, and it lingered there. She looked at him and he felt like they knew each other, he looked down at her hands, noticed that she was wearing handcuffs. The man sitting beside her looked up at James. He was suspicious, fearing that James was a friend of the woman's, that maybe she was planning to get away. Why did James knew that the woman liked to run away?_

_But James didn't have much time to wonder, as Shannon came running past him, she knocked him out off his feet. "Hey, slow down, Sticks!" James yelled at her._

_Everybody on the plane was paying attention as Shannon stopped near another woman. The woman also looked familiar to James, she was a brunette, light mocha skin with the roundest lips he'd ever seen, and somehow he knew her name was Ana Lucia, he just didn't know where he knew her from._

"_You killed me, bitch!" Shannon yelled at Ana Lucia, who was holding a glass of juice in her hand, she was also confused. "I had just found someone who believed in me, and you killed me!" Shannon splashed Ana Lucia with her juice. The police officer was mad and soon they were caught in a cat fight._

_More flight attendants came to help them. James smiled, everything was starting to make sense to him. He saw Sayid running in their direction, he pulled Shannon away._

"_Shannon, it wasn't her fault!" Sayid said and Ana Lucia's expression changed from confusion and anger to understanding. "She made a mistake…"_

_Then another woman shrieked, this time more urgent, more desperate, and much more painful. Charlie, who was tapping his Drive Shaft ring on the seat snapped his head, "Claire!" He said recognizing her voice._

"_Somebody help me, I'm having my baby!" Claire said, Charlie got up, and ran to her, he held her hand. _

_Claire was now the center of attention, Cindy and another stewardess went over to help the soon to be mother. Jack was also by her side now. "It's ok, I'm a doctor!" He told them, kneeling down next to Claire. "Claire, calm down, that's not how things are meant to happen, Aaron's not going to be born for another month." _

"_No," she said desperately, "he's coming now, I know he is!"_

"_Oh, no!" Jack said_

"_What's it?" Cindy asked_

"_Her water just broke!" Jack explained, Cindy looked confused at her work colleague._

"_Who authorized her on the plane? She's clearly on her third semester." Cindy shrugged and went to the cockpit to tell her superiors about Claire's condition. A yellow Labrador came running and knocked the flight attendant off her feet. "And how did this dog get up here?" She asked._

"_Vincent!" Ten year old Walt called out. The dog barked contented, he went over to the boy and licked his face._

_The U.S. Marshal, that was still worried that maybe Kate was behind what was happening, that maybe this was just a diversion for her to get away, he got up alarmed, reaching for the gun on his ankle. "Everybody, shut up!" He yelled and cocked the barrel of his gun. Everyone was in silence except for Claire who whined quietly in pain. "Can somebody explain to me what is happening?" _

_Libby __cleared her throat, she had come from the tail section because Claire had been screaming and thought that maybe she could help her. "I'm a clinical psychologist," she said, "and I believe that when we hit turbulence we begun to experience mass hysteria. We were just hallucinating!" She explained and everyone looked at her mouth agape. Had it really just been a hallucination? _

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**Note #1:** Oh, guys, sorry for the minor cliffhanger. I hate to leave things unresolved, but I just want to find out what everybody's reaction is going to be. Say, is the answer for all Lost's mysteries mass hysteria?! I can hear the drums beating loudly. Man, season six is so far away!!! Reviews make next chapter come faster… =]

**Note #2: **I've always wondered how Kate knew that Claire liked the song "Catch a Falling Star", maybe she has heard Claire singing it to Aaron. But I decided to give a better explanation for it on this chapter. I thought it fit, and it was nice.

**N****ote #3: **I know that Ben can't be a Pieces since he celebrated his birthday in "The Man Behind Curtain" and that was probably December, a few weeks before Christmas. But I love it that Ben chose my zodiac sign to use for himself. That was probably a continuity error, but it still makes me happy. So I had to fit that scene into my story.

**N****ote #4: **Richard and Eloise, wow, I never saw that coming. It's just one of those things that happen without you even realizing. Characters, they think they can rule us writers! I liked this shipping, why haven't I thought of this before? Do they have a name for it? Hawkinpert, no too weird, maybe Elliard, yeah, that sounds a little better… Ok, I'll stop rambling!


	12. You’re Found

**You're Found**  
[Chapter 11 – Part 12 of 12]

**Author's Note:** And now, ladies and gentlemen, last but not least, the final chapter. I'm not going to say much, or else I'll spoil it. I hope you like it, please review, I love reviews.

Oh, please don't mind my French and Spanish, it's not as good as my English, Portuguese is still my first language. I know that many people think Spanish and Portuguese are one and the same, they may sound alike for some, but I'll tell you, the grammar is completely different. I actually have more trouble learning Spanish then I did English, and even though I've been studying it for more than four years I still haven't got the hang of it.

And just one little last reminder, flashbacks are in italics.

**Chapter Summary:** What ever happened, happened, right?! But what exactly did happen? Daniel gives the answers to Charlie's question that Lost writers haven't answered us yet. "Guys, where are we?"

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She looked at him and smiled, she wanted him to know that everything was going to be fine, but the tears in her eyes were proof that she didn't know it for sure. But she couldn't back out now. Jack had thrown the nuke, and the island would explode at any minute, and they would flash back to their right time, and everything was going to be fine. It had to be!

Juliet wondered one last time if she was doing the right thing, if maybe James was right, that they should have left Jack behind. But there was no turning back now, it was happening so fast, one minute they were pointing guns, the other things were being dragged into the shaft, and magnetic humming was taking over the chaos.

She saw it happening before her eyes, and her heart skipped a beat. Phil pointed a gun at James, and she was so worried about having his back that she didn't notice it. She was standing a few feet away from the shaft when something really powerful knocked her off her feet. She reacted almost immediately her heart pounding forcefully on her chest, she tried desperately to grab a hold of something, anything. But the metal chains, she realized, had now wrapped itself around her waist and were dragging her hard and fast.

She screamed and soon reached the opening of the hole, she was now being pulled down, she held on to the surface for dear life.

"Help!" She yelled to no one in particular and soon Kate was at her side grabbing the chains while Juliet grabbed the machinery that was now stuck on the opening of the shaft.

Kate held the chains tight, but Juliet was much too heavy, probably because of the chains that were pulling her down. Kate looked around, Jack was unconscious on the floor and James was starting to come to.

"James, help!" Kate yelled.

At the mention of his name James snapped into action, he rushed over to Kate, held tight to the machinery and reached down to Juliet, her hands had just slipped when he grabbed one of them.

"Where do you think you're going, Blondie?" He asked half grunting, she was much heavier than usual and he was fighting to hold her in place. Juliet shouted in pain, she felt like she was being torn apart. The chains seemed to have a mind of their own.

"Kate! Help me get those chains off!" James sounded bossy, but Kate didn't hesitate to obey. "Hold on! You hold on! " He told Juliet, she looked up at him, desperation gleaming in her big blue eyes. Kate lay on the floor and reached inside the shaft almost falling too, but the chains were still out of her reach, Juliet was considerably taller than her.

"I can't!" Juliet said, "I can't get it off."

"I got you." James told her firmly. The chains pulled Juliet even harder and she grunted.

"I can't..." Kate said crying.

The sound of metal creaking was everywhere, it was so scary. Juliet looked up and noticed that the scaffold that James was leaning was staring give away, it would fall any minute and she couldn't let it take James along with her. He need to stay alive, he needed to take care of Rachel. She started to slip from his hands, it was as if he could read her intentions.

"Juliet! No!" James said trying not to cry. "Don't you leave me!" He begged, Juliet remembered the time she and Kate were attacked by a bright light, she remembered the whispers she heard.

"It's okay," Juliet said painting, '_If you die, if you let go, it will be ok!_' Juliet remembered. She wasn't afraid anymore, she knew that if she died right here, she knew all the people she loved would be ok, including Rachel. She had to do it, it was the only way to make things right, but she could take James with her. He needed to take care of their daughter!

"Don't you leave me!" He begged again when she started to slip from his fingers.

"I love you," Juliet said between sobs.

"No, you don't let go!"

"I love you, James."

"Don't let go." She stared up at him, and she knew, she knew he loved her as much as she loved him, she had no doubts anymore.

"I love you so much," hurt seemed to be smoldering her heart, harder and harder at each word she spoke, just like the chains holding her tight by the waist. Juliet knew this was goodbye.

"No! No, don't let go!" He shouted and she slipped from him, she began to fall rapidly.

"Aaaaah!" Juliet scream echoed in the deep of the shaft as she fell, her stomach was turning with the rush of her last and bizarre rollercoaster like feeling.

"Juliet! No!" She heard him crying out to her.

Juliet's body hit the bottom of the shaft with a loud thud, splashing water everywhere. She fought, grabbing onto her life afraid to give in, moments after as she lay shocked on the wet floor she heard noises getting louder, getting nearer. And it finally hit her, the whole machinery hit her violently before she gave into nothingness.

She came to, very much aware of everything on her surroundings, she coughed and blood spilt out of her moth. She was in deliriously pain, this wasn't supposed to happen, why was she still alive? She was supposed to have died! She surveyed around her and then she saw it. The bomb! She didn't die, because she was supposed to detonate the bomb. She was the one who needed to destroy the hatch before it was ever built.

'_We __won't remember any of this ever happened!'_

She heard Kate's voice repeating over and over in her mind as she stared dangerously at the bomb. She pulled herself up, summing up all the strength she still had left. She crawled to the bomb, slowly and forcibly painfully. She didn't think, she wasn't capable of thinking anymore as she reached for a stone and hit at the bomb.

She hit the bomb seven times getting more anxious at each time she failed to set it off.

"Come on, you son of bitch!" She cried out and hit the bomb one final time and everything went bright.

Then came darkness, she was laying still, her whole body ached, and when she opened her eyes it was gone. It was silent. She was lying on her stomach, in a bed; her hand was grabbing an unfamiliar white sheet.

'_It happened!'_ She figured.

The bomb must have worked. She was out of the island, safe and sound. But one thing was disturbingly wrong.

Juliet moved out of bed, shaking and shivering. She looked around her studying the strange room, probably hers, she saw herself in the mirror. She didn't have a scratch on her face, not even a scar or something that would confirm it happened. But…

"I remember it!" She said aloud.

She did, she remembered it all. Ben, and the mother's that kept dying, she remembered Jack and the other survivors. A face came to her mind, he was sweet, his hair was kind of blond with small green eyes, he had 5 o-clock shadow and a flash of the most perfect smile, with a dimple on each cheek.

Juliet calmly paced the room. She stopped at her side of the bed as the face of the man she learned to love more than anything begun to change into an innocent one. The face had some of the same features of the previous one, only more feminine and defenseless. She had bright big eyes, as blue as the sky, she had rounded chubby cheeks with the same cute dimples. Her little perfect mouth opened with the same smile only with just a couple of teeth.

Juliet fell on the floor, she leaned her head on the mattress when she remembered one night, that wasn't even especial at all. It was a normal night, like many before. A night she was starting to realize was never going to happen again.

----------------------

_**Island – 1977**_

"_Where did you find this dog anyway?" __James asked watching a chocolate colored Chiuaua running frenetically through the house._

_He was sitting on the living room floor, putting Rachel down on a blanket for her tummy time. The girl giggled furiously at the dog's hyper activeness. The little puppy in question was feeling ecstatic at being the center of attention. The dog would run inside the bedrooms, then run back to the living room, jump past Rachel. The dog didn't stop. _

"_Michelle, the woman who moved in with her family a few months ago," Juliet explained folding clothes in the laundry room. "She brought a dog with her and the dog was pregnant. She asked me today if I would like to take one of the puppies and then I chose her."_

"_See, Blondie, this is the kind of thing you run by me first." He said looking behind his back to find Juliet. She was standing by the kitchen counter wearing pajamas, pretending to look mad while holding a basket of clean folded clothes._

"_Run by you, James?" She asked taping her right foot on the floor, the fluffy pink sleepers didn't help to make her look threatening, "I thought you were the one who run things by me." She said failing completely to hide the smile on her face. "Now go make us some dinner!" She demanded and went to put away the clothes._

"_Yes ma'am!" He answered getting to his feet and moving to set the table, the food was already cooked of course. The two of them were horrible in the kitchen, at least Juliet burned the food less often. "I just don't know if I like dogs, that's all. They are needy and you never know what they are thinking."_

"_Oh, sure," Juliet said back __in the living, she bent over and picked Rachel up, placing her on the high chair. Juliet pointed James's attention to the dog that was now running around in circles chasing its tail frenetically until losing her balance and falling. They both laughed, the dog picked herself up and went to explore her new house. "I'm sure she is planning to attack us on our sleep."_

"_Yeah," James said starting to like the idea of owning a pet. "So what are we calling her?" Juliet set on her place at the table as James went to serve the food._

"_She looks so little like a piece of chocolate I already started calling her Candy."_

"_Sounds like a bitch's name." James commented sarcastically, "I guess it fits her!"_

_They begun to eat, telling each other about what they did all day, the jokes they've heard as they took shifts to feed Rachel. The dog finally noticed what was happening at the table and decided she was also hungry. James was the first to notice the little furry animal at their feet. He watched her for a moment._

"_There's something weird about this dog," he said not sure of what it was, "I think… It looks like her hind legs are longer than her front legs." Juliet looked at the dog. _

"_I think you are right, James." She noticed that the dog walked weird because of that._

"_What do you want, Bugs Bunny?" He asked when the dog begun to dig at his leg for attention, she looked up at him, begging for food. "Here you go," he picked a piece of meat from his plate and threw at the dog._

"_Oh, don't do that, James." Juliet scolded him, "we don't want her to pick up bad habits!" The dog chewed on the meat a few times, but wasn't able to swallow it so she lost interest leaving the half chewed meat lying on the floor._

"_Well, look at that!" James said, "not even the dog likes your food, Blondie!" He teased her smirking._

"_Then let's not give her some of yours, we don't want to poison her!" She bantered back._

_As they finished eating James picked Rachel up and Juliet did the dishes, they normal routine. He chose a book from his collection and sat on his favorite chair, Rachel cooed with anticipation at the prospect of being read to. He watched with amusement as little Candy tried her best to jump on the couch with no success._

_She reminded him of Juliet and Rachel. Juliet was a woman who would go to any means to get what she wanted, and Rachel spent half her time trying to achieve new milestones, he loved to watch the little baby struggle to turn on her own. Now here was this dog, standing on her hind legs, jumping hysterically as the front paws tried to reach the top of the couch. Even without getting what she wanted she didn't stop trying. She never gave up!_

_James__ put his large hand on her back and the dog used it as a support to push herself up on the couch, there she circled a couple of times and lied down forming a tight little ball. James smiled as he realized the dog already belonged to his family. _

_He read until Rachel's eyes begun to fail her a little. Juliet took her to the nursery, she loved her daughter more than anything, but what she loved best about her was when she was sleepy, it made her look even cuter. Juliet burped her, then put her down in the crib and tucked her in, the baby snuggled contently in her favorite blanket. _

_Juliet made it to the__ master bedroom, the bathroom door was open and James was nowhere in sight. She noticed a small lump on the bed, she pulled up the covers and found Candy there, she wagged her tail at Juliet who scratched the dog's belly and covered her up again. She went into the bathroom. James stared her up and down from the bath tub, bubbles covering him up. _

"_Bugs Bunny took over our bed," he said matter-of-factly._

"_Yeah, I noticed." She said chuckling with a big smile on her face._

"_So what are you waiting for? Take off those clothes and get in here, hot mama!" Juliet laughed sensuously, striping off her pajamas. Another bath wouldn't kill anyone._

----------------------

Juliet buried her face in the mattress crying and sobbing as she remembered Rachel's funny little giggles, she could still hear them in her head. "I remember, God damn it, I remember!" The giggles soon turned into cooing sounds of an infant who was longing to talk, but the sound was different. It sounded real, sounded near, as if it was in the back of her head.

Juliet turned abruptly, eager to find if it was real or not. She stared dumbfound at the doorway, and there stood James, smiling warmly at her, holding Rachel in his arm.

"Things haven't come back to you yet, huh?" He said, and she didn't believe she was really looking at them. She looked around the room again and finally noticed the other side of the bed, it was unmade, she ran her hand through it, still hot. "I woke up with a loud explosion, but I wasn't at the island," he begun to explain, "I was lying in bed next to you when chipmunk-cheeks here started to fuss on the next room." Juliet stared at him again her mouth open with astonishment. "I heard her through the baby monitor." He finished his story.

The phone rang. James gave Rachel to her mother and went in the living room to pick it up, knowing that Juliet probably needed some space to sort out her thoughts. Juliet held her daughter running her hand through the baby's body, combing her hair, stroking her cheeks, counting ten fingers and ten toes. She kissed Rachel's forehead and a hot fat tear rolled down Juliet's face.

Rachel started to fuss with impatience on her arms, and Juliet knew what she wanted. Juliet lift up her shirt and the baby went hungrily for Juliet's breast. Juliet could hear the muffed sound of James's voice. The baby started to feed and looked her mother in the eye. Juliet smiled while she caressed the baby's face with her thumb. Juliet finally felt whole again as relieve flooded over her.

----------------------

_**Miami – 2002**_

_Juliet rocked her newborn nephew in her arms as the little boy slept peacefully. Her life was wonderful now that Richard had never contacted her and she had never gone to the island, there was only one thing missing, but she knew it was only a matter of time before she was reunited with James. Life wouldn't be so cruel__ not to bring them together._

"_How was it to help deliver your own nephew?" Rachel asked her sister from the hospital bed._

"_It was special," Juliet said, bringing the baby closer to her so she could smell him. Juliet smiled at her sister._

"_I'm gonna name him Julian." Juliet looked over at her flattered. She always assumed that Rachel only picked that name for him because Rachel thought Juliet had died. She didn't expect her sister to choose it now that it never really happened. Rachel didn't remember anything. "I… I may have given birth to him, but you gave him life."_

_Juliet smiled close to tears, she was completely emotional. "Thank you… When James and I have a baby together, I'm gonna name her Rachel, because I love you so much."_

_Rachel smirked at Juliet. "What if it's a boy?" Juliet chuckled. "Please don't name him Raquello!"_

"_I know it's gonna be a girl," Juliet told her, giving little Julian to his mother._

_Rachel sighed worried. "You know, Jules? I don't like it when you talk about this dream guy of yours, it's almost as if you believe he does exist." _

"_He does exist, Rachel!" _

"_And so you'll wait for him to show up. You don't go out, you don't date." Rachel looked concerned at her sibling. "Ok, if he is real, why don't you go look for him?"_

"_Because it's 200__2 and he is not my James yet!" _

----------------------

"Ok, we'll be there!" James said to the phone as the doorbell rang, Candy barked at the door wagging her tail. "I gotta go now." He hung up the phone and opened the door, Cassidy and Clementine stared at him.

"Hi Daddy!" The five year old girl whose hair went down to her hip hugged him. James was surprised by the rush of feelings that ran through his body.

"Take it easy, Rapunzel, I'm still dizzy from sleep." He chuckled at her, fussing with her hair as she smiled up at him.

"I love when you call me that." She said, James automatically bent down so she could give him a wet kiss on the cheeks.

The girl went to her bedroom, leaving her parents alone, she skipped contently as she went with Candy following her barking excited. Clementine loved spending time with her father. He was always the good cop.

"I won't be able to pick her up tonight." Cassidy informed him, James was stunned by everything, but he just played along. "Can you drop her off at school tomorrow?" Cassidy asked and James simply nodded. "Ok, I'm on a hurry, see ya!"

James closed the door, staring at the empty room, trying to understand what was happening when Clementine called him from her bedroom. "Daddy, come play with me."

----------------------

_**Oceanic **__**flight 815 – 2004**_

"_Can somebody explain to me what is happening?" _

_Libby cleared her throat, she had come from the tail section because Claire had been screaming and thought that maybe she could help her. "I'm a clinical psychologist," she said, "and I believe that when we hit turbulence we begun to experience mass hysteria. We were just hallucinating!" She explained and everyone looked at her mouth agape. Had it really just been a hallucination?_

"_Libby!" She heard him saying her name, she would recognize his sweet voice anywhere. She looked at him and he looked at her as if he was seeing a ghost._

"_Hurley!" She said and ran towards him, towards his arms. She felt safe in his embrace, small in his arms, loved in his hug. _

"_Oh, Libby," he said cradling her head on his big hand, "I'm so sorry I forgot the blanket."_

"_It's ok!" She answered sweetly, cupping his face, stroking his cheek with her thumbs. She loved him so much. He kissed her, he was such a good kisser._

_Bernard came running from the tail section, Rose looked up at him, she was holding his ring safely, because his finger swelled when he flew. She was relieved to see him back. "Thank God you are back!" She said, the couple hugged each other, happy that this time at least they wouldn't be apart._

"_Yeo-Bo," Sun finally realized what was happening. Jin looked at her, with the same understanding, they were suddenly filled with sorrow, that three years apart brought them, but as he took his wife in his arms for a kiss, it all faded away._

_James looked around everyone, he felt happy for them, they were being reunited with the people they cared most in the world. He looked at Kate, and she recognized him, the U.S. Marshall wasn't happy about their exchange, James knew he should better let it be. He walked to his seat, and on the way his gaze fell upon Jack._

_The doctor was too busy taking care of Claire to notice him. James was mad at him, yes he was happy about all those people, but what about Kate, what about him?_

"_Ladies and gentlemen," a male voice over the intercom interrupted the joyful reunion, "this is you pilot speaking, I know that there is something weird going on. Last I remember I was being smashed into a tree by a smoke thing. But I promised the slightly crazy pregnant girl that I would make this flight extra smooth. So please fasten your seat belts we are about to land!"_

"_Jack," he looked up at the mention of his name, Cindy had come back, "can you keep Claire company until we land safely?" She asked, "we already informed the company about her condition, there's an ambulance waiting when we land."_

"_Sure," he answered fastening Claire's seatbelt and sitting on the empty seat beside her. _

_Charlie started to move, but Claire held his hand tight. "Don't leave me, Charlie," she begged._

"_Don't worry, Claire, I'm not going to leave you, I'll be on my seat right over there!" He pointed and she nodded her head._

"_It's going to be ok, Claire," Jack promised, "the contractions are still four minutes apart. We still got time."_

_Once they landed, Jack accompanied Claire into an ambulance. She had the baby on the way to the hospital. One of the doctors patted Jack's back. "Congratulations, you're a father!"_

_Jack shook his head embarrassed, and instead of explaining he was her friend he said, "I'm her brother." _

"_Well, it's still a good thing, ain't it?" _

"_Yes, it is." Jack agreed, he looked over at Claire who was holding Aaron on her arms, Jack gave him his finger and the baby grabbed it. _

"_Do you think he remembers it?" She asked him._

"_I think he does." _

"_I missed you turnip-head!" Claire kissed the baby's forehead._

_Back at the airport, as Kate was escorted to jail she passed by Ana Lucia. The Latin American woman was holding a hand bag, looking anxiously for someone in the crowd. When she finally spotted the familiar face her mother smiled at her and waved. Ana Lucia couldn't hold her tears, she walked in her direction. _

"_Perdón mama!" Ana Lucia said when she was standing inches from her mother, he mouth quivered, she craved for Teresa to hold her, just like she did when Ana was a little girl. __"Lo hice por venganza, estaba enojada con él, porque estaba embarazada, e él mató a mi bebé." __Her voice cracked at the memory. Ana cried as she told her mother she was sorry for killing Jason, she realized she was wrong, that just because she was pregnant when he shot her in the stomach didn't make it ok for her to make justice in her own hands. _

"_Hija mía, te comprendo much__o más que te imaginas!" __Her mother understood her reasons, taking Ana Lucia in her arms and crying along with her. _

"_Te extrañe mucho, mama!"_

"_I know, I missed you too!" _

_Michael watched Ana Lucia and her mother, he turned to his son that was also watching the scene, "I'm sorry Walt!" The boy didn't answer him, he hadn't spoken a word to him in three years, he had forgotten how to do it._

_Son and father watched as Hurley and Libby passed by them walking arm in arm, making plans for the future. "I guess it doesn't matter anymore, does it?" Walt looked up at him, surprised that he was talking to him. "I'm glad you went back to help everyone." _

_Walt smiled at his father, Vincent started to bark as John Locke wheeled next to them. "You are back on the wheel chair, mister Locke?" Walt asked sadly at the fact that the man didn't have his happy ending._

"_Walt, you're a very special boy," Locke said, "and you know that beauty AND happiness is on the eyes of the beholder! I've been on my walkabout, and I realized that being paralyzed is not the worst thing in the world. I have been a hero, and that is enough for me!" _

_James was picking up his luggage as he watched everyone. Jack's plan had worked, but he never even thought about what it would do to everyone else. Why would he? He's life was fine now, he was going to go back to be a doctor, as if the island never happened. He didn't even care that Kate would be behind bars for the rest of her life because she murdered a man that made her life a living hell._

_He saw Zack and Emma running happily into their mother's embrace. And then Shannon and Boone walked by him hand in hand. Charlie in front of him was on the phone. "What? Aaron is born, great, I'm on my way!" Charlie smiled over at him, and James smiled back at him. He was happy all those people were having their happy ending._

_But at the same time James was furious, because his life was over._

"_I'm sorry I let go!" He recognized her voice, he turned to look at her, but she looked more like a vision, yet she seemed more real than ever. "But everything worked out fine, didn't it?"_

"_Juliet," he whispered as if she had come back from death._

----------------------

Rachel sat on her mother's lap, she looked around the restaurant they were at. Clementine was playing mummy to Aaron and little Charlie Hume while the adults talked about stuff she didn't understand. She liked to hear the sound of their voices though. She looked at a dark haired woman in front of her, the woman smiled and Rachel flashed her one big toothless smile.

Her name was Kate, she had brought Aaron along with her and was sitting beside Jack. There was another nice lady who was blond like Rachel's mother. Her name was Penny she had come with Desmond and little Charlie. The last set of adults was a very odd looking couple, a skinny man wearing a tie and redheaded woman. They were Daniel and Charlotte, Daniel talked a little funny, Rachel noticed, he made her giggle.

The baby's attention fell on a napkin sitting at the table. She reached her chubby arms for it and up it on her mouth.

"Nope," her father told her pulling the napkin out of her hand, "you know your mother doesn't like when you put things on your mouth, Ray-ray!" Rachel looked up at him and cooed, which earned her an 'aw' from the women sitting around the table. "So," James turned his attention back at the conversation. "Tell us, H.G. Wells, what exactly happened when we set off the bomb. And don't say it's too darn complicated for us to understand or I'll bitch slap you again." James warned kidding.

"Believe you me, Jim, I've been studying what happened to us for all my life. It. Is. Complicated." Daniel told him. "But I'll try and explain." He pause thinking. "Are you guys familiar with the concept of wormhole?" When nobody answered him, Daniel proceeded. "A wormhole is hypothetical shortcut through space and time, a passage, connecting two different universes. For example, there is a 'baby universe' connected to its 'parent' by a narrow 'umbilicus', the 'umbilicus' being the wormhole. A wormhole has at least two mouths that are connected to a single throat. If the wormhole is traversable, matter can travel from one mouth to the other by passing through the throat."

Daniel was used to people looking at him confused when he started to vent about scientific babble, but these people were looking at him intrigued, paying attention to each word he said, the explanation of what was the island was long overdue. "We weren't in an island, we were in a 'baby universe'. You guys accidently passed through the wormhole, and therefore got trapped inside this baby universe that is constantly moving. The Dharma people had come up with the bearing for the wormhole, that's why they were able to travel back and forth."

Everyone stared at Daniel speechless. "My mother told me a story, that I think you'll love to hear. Once upon a time there was a man named Josiah, he was the leader of some people whose job was to protect a place guarded by two monsters. One day Jacob, Josiah's secretary, came upon one of the monsters, and it gave him all the answers."

"The forbidden fruit," Juliet murmured.

"That's right Juliet." Daniel smiled at her. "Jacob used his new found power to bring people to the island and play god. Josiah was unhappy about this, but he wasn't as powerful as Jacob. He gathered a group of people to try and stop Jacob. Josiah died without succeeding! But when someone dies on the island, the soul is forever trapped inside that baby universe. The island is in some ways like a snow globe."

Daniel sipped his drink before continuing. "For years and years Josiah's followers waited for the right time to make a move. They lived unnoticed under Jacob's nose, pretending to be one of those we called Others… We were all focusing our attention at Ben being the enemy that we neglected to notice that he was nothing more than a pawn. When we were in the 70's and you guys gave young Ben to Richard, who is one of Josiah's follower, by the way, Richard told the boy about his plan. Once Ben grew up, my father, Charles Widmore, made the same mistake we did. He thought that Ben was the enemy, when in reality, Christian, Jack's father, was the real enemy."

"You see! Charles Widmore is to Jacob as Christian Shephard is to Josiah. They both had a son with a woman on the island; Jack and me. And they both had a daughter with an outsider; Penny and Claire. The four of us were the link that would bring to the island the two important variables that would finally end their game forever. The variables in this equation are Ben and Juliet!"

They didn't understand him, so Daniel continued. "If Penny hadn't dated Desmond, Widmore wouldn't have sent him to the island as a mean to get rid of him. Desmond would never have failed to push the button and Oceanic 815 would never have crashed. If things had played out like this, Jack would never have saved Ben's life, who would never get the chance to kill Jacob. And if Ben had died of cancer, Juliet would never be marked and so sent back in time to detonate the bomb and blow up the island."

"Are you telling me that I saved the world from a guy who wanted to play god with humanity?!" Juliet asked stunned.

"No," Daniel disagreed "actually, that was Ben's part, as he killed Jacob. You however, saved the earth from an eventual Armageddon. If you hadn't been sent back in time the island would eventually leak enough electromagnetism to blow itself in such a degree, turning into a black hole that would drag the entire solar system."

"So, it's over then?" Desmond asked

"I guess it is…" Daniel answered contently. "After Juliet blew up the island we flashed forward to 2007, which is our correct timeline."

"So explains something to me," Juliet asked, "if I blew up the island in the 70's, then the hatch was never built, which explains why Oceanic 815 never crashed and landed safely in LAX. But for me to have ever gone back in time to detonate the bomb the island would have to have moved. In order for the island to move John Locke must have moved it. If the plane never crashed then John Locke was never there to start the time jumps… This doesn't make any sense!"

"Time paradox," Daniel gave name to Juliet's problem, "this has always been a question of mine, and the explanation I have for it is that it did happen. You all must have noticed by now that we have two pasts. The one that is very vivid, of us being on the island. And there is the past where there was never an island. No matter what, it did happen! No matter if the island was exploded in the 70's, it happened! Time is not as logic as we are taught to believe. Time is subjective. If you want to get philosophical about it, time doesn't even exist!"

"Whatever happened, happened," Jack quoted Daniel.

"Exactly, Jack!" Daniel exclaimed like a proud teacher. "Juliet detonated the bomb in 1977 and exploded the island. That is what always happened, no matter if on her first past the island existed in 2004. Time in this case is irrelevant!"

Time passed as they ate and swap stories about how their lives have been like in their new past. Kate explained that she and Jack were the couple that Claire was supposed to meet in Los Angeles about the adoption of Aaron. After Diane, Kate's mother, refused to testify she was sent free, she and Jack got married and adopted Aaron.

Jack told them that Claire had spent three years away from Aaron because the island needed her. She understood that in the meanwhile Kate had become Aaron's mother and Claire was glad to be his aunt.

"She visits a lot," Jack said, "Charlie does too. They are Aaron's godparents. Speaking of Charlie, his band made a comeback with the release of their second album, Polar Bears in the Bloody Island. Monster eats the Pilot was one of the most played hits in 2004 along with Saved."

"I know, brother!" Desmond said. "Drive Shaft was sponsored by Hurley. I know this because we get together all the time, Hurley, Charlie, Jin and me. We camp out like in the old days, Jin's ghost stories are much scarier now that he tells them in English."

"How are Sun and Jin?" Jack asked.

"Oh, they are blissfully happy. Their daughter is beautiful, Sun tells us she says she's Charlie's girlfriend. Did you hear about Hurley?" Desmond asked and everyone shook their heads. "He married Libby, she's four months pregnant. Oh, and Hurley paid his $20,000.00 debt to Walt. Hurley says that Walt and Michael are living in Manhattan, like Michael always planned. They kept in contact with Rose and Bernard, they are living on Brooklyn, they are doing fine, Rose's cancer is gone and they are enjoying their retirement."

"I think that Ana Lucia is pregnant too." Juliet said searching inside her memory. "I don't know why, but I think I treated her. Because of her miscarriage, it had damaged her womb but I was able to help her." Juliet told with a content smile.

"I remember hearing something about Sayid marrying Nadia." James told them. "I think they are building houses in Dominican Republic for unprivileged families. And Mr. Eko, I heard something about him building a church. What about you, Twitchy?" James asked Daniel. "Any news from the old gang?"

"Well, last I heard Frank has retired. He is afraid to ever be a pilot again. I keep telling him the island blew up. But he says he doesn't believe me, and he'll never set foot on that hell ever again. He lives here in Florida. And Miles is you know, he's been talking to dead people."

"As to me," Charlotte said putting her hands on the table, showing everyone a big diamond ring, "I'm getting married to Daniel in December." Daniel and Charlotte shared a smile.

"Congratulations, Twitchy!" James patted him in the back.

"That is so gorgeous!" Penny said, holding Charlotte's hand to look at the ring.

"By the size of that ring," Kate said, "I can assume that physicists get paid better than doctors." Everyone laughed as Jack turned red.

"If size matters to you, you should see the size of Libby's ring, it's almost as big as Hurley." Penny said and they laughed again.

"Hey, does anyone know whatever happened to Ben?" Juliet asked curiously.

"No, I don't," Daniel lied, he knew his older brother liked to keep his privacy.

----------------------

_**Brittany – France – 1992 **_

_It was late at night while Ben sat alone in his office, writing compulsively on his computer what one day would become a bestselling novel written under the name of Henry Gale. _'It started as another obsession.'_ He tipped into the computer. _

'If there is something that I understand better than anything in this world is obsession. It can drive fools into madness. But I'm not crazy, no, I'm eccentric. I've watched her from a distance, watched her life crumble to her feet. I watched each one of her friends die. Until the day her husband succumbed to a disease more powerful than any man created medicine.

But she stood graciously, refusing to let it take over her. Because she strived for a life better than the one she previously had. She hated me for everything that I had done to her, but she always failed to realize that I never meant any harm. My actions came from orders beyond my control, and after the night I first laid my eyes on hers I engaged myself in a stupid game just to protect her from things that she didn't even understand.

And somehow…'

_Ben__ stopped tipping when he heard a knock on his door. He looked up from the top of his glasses, his luxurious bathrobe kept his body protected from the cold of the night. The door opened to reveal his butler. _

"_Monsieur, mon travail est fini. __Puis-je m'absenter?" His butler asked if he could be excused since his work was done._

"_Oui, bien sur!" Ben agreed, he noticed the light was on in the hallway._

_Ben got up on his feet, walked out of the office and the sweet voice of his wife filled the silence of the house bringing a smile to his face. A smile he reserved just for the people he truly loved. He followed her singing, found her in their daughter's bedroom. He stood on the doorway, watching her cradling the three year old on her arms._

"_Des reflets changeants sous la pluie... La mer, au ciel d'ete confond ses blancs moutons avec les anges si purs!" __She sang softly, the beautiful lyrics he liked the most._

"_The sparkles in the sea change under the rain." He said softly and she turned to face him, even in the dark her green eyes sparkled just like in her lullaby. "The white clouds in the summer sky look like pure angels when they touch the sea." They shared a smile. "I've always liked this song."_

_She put the sleeping toddler on the bed, covering her up with the blanket. Ben came over, hugging his wife from behind and kissed the back of her head. __"Et d'une chanson d'amour, la mer a berce mon coeur pour la vie!" __He sung letting the heat from her body warm his soul._

"_Yes, the sea has got our hearts forever." She agreed._

"_I love you Danielle!" __He whispered_

"_Je t'aime mon chéri!"_

"_Why was Alex awake?" He asked worried._

"_She had a nightmare, she dreamt she was on the island again."_

"_She'll grow over her fear someday," he said, "no matter what we do, the seas has got our hearts forever." She turned on his arms to kiss him tenderly._

"_Are you coming to bed with me?" She asked looking up at him._

"_In a minute, I have something I need to finish first." He parted their embrace and went back into his office. He sat on the chair and resumed writing._

'And somehow during our hate relationship I realized how beautiful she was. She was the mother of my daughter, and she was the woman that I loved. I still ask myself what I did to deserve her forgiveness. And sometimes I still think they could do better than me. But I never loved someone like I love the two of them, and I'm forever thankful for them to teach me the meaning of the word.'

_He hit the save bu__tton and smiled proud satisfied that he had finished his first book. He walked to the window and looked out into the sea. France was his home now, and Brittany was beautiful this time of the year, the closest thing that reminded him of the island. _

----------------------

James stirred the car out of the parking lot, they had just said good bye to their friends, Rachel was sleeping on her car seat while Clementine played with her Barbie doll. "All right, what's next?" Juliet asked, the entire memory of her new past hadn't come back to her yet, and Juliet was more than confused.

"I think I have a faint idea that we made plans with your sister to watch Julian this afternoon."

"Yes, you're right!" Juliet said remembering. "We were gonna take the kids out to the movies and then to eat some ice cream."

James chuckled, driving the car through the streets of Miami, because somehow he was familiar to the place he was heading. "Movies and ice cream! What's next? Chuck E. Cheese? Can somebody tell me when have I become Mr. American Dad?"

Juliet smiled then answered his question, "when you asked if I wanted to have a baby with the smoke monster."

Juliet watched him smiling as he drove, she was bewildered. It was amazing how much he had changed. She remembered when she read his file, back then she would never even think about a romantic relationship with that man. But here they were, three years later, and he was a completely different person. And he liked the new him. And what was even more stunning was that Juliet knew she was the one responsible for his change.

When they arrived at Rachel's house Juliet felt her heart somersaulting, James was by her side and knocked on the door. The seconds seemed to stretch out longer than necessary as she waited impatiently for the door to open. Juliet had a couple of memories, of being a part of Julian's life, but inside, it felt like she had never met him.

Rachel opened the door to them, with a big smile on her face. Juliet couldn't hold back her tears as she threw her arms around her sister for a hug. It had been six years since the last time she had seen her.

"Hey, Jules, are you all right?" Rachel asked worried, she looked at James. "Is she all right?" He didn't answer simply shrugged.

"Auntie Jules!" At the mention of her name Juliet looked up at the top of the stairs.

A five year old boy smiled at her, he ran down the stairs. Juliet was speechless, she let go of Rachel and kneeled on the floor as the boy reached the last step and ran into her arms for a big bear hug. Juliet felt warm inside, her body recognized him, yet her heart felt like it was the first time she ever hugged him.

Juliet was still crying as she ran her hands through his blond hair. His eyes were dark brown, and he had chubby cheeks. "He looks so much like you, Rachel!"

Julian looked up at his mother. "Mummy, why is she acting so weird?"

"It's just," Juliet said and he looked back at her still smiling, "I just missed you, Tiger!" Juliet got up reaching a hand for Julian to hold, he took it. "We'll see you later, Rach." Rachel smiled and waved good bye.

On the ride to the movies Clementine and Julian fought about what movie they would want to watch. Julian wanted to watch Ratatouille, while Clementine wanted to watch a big kid movie like Harry Potter. Then she called Julian a cry baby and pinched him lightly on the arm.

"Don't touch me, you have cooties!" Julian whined.

"No, you're the one who has cooties, Dopey!"

"Auntie Jules, Clementine is nicknaming me again!" Julian complained.

James smiled proudly. "That's my girl!"

----------------------

_**Los Angeles – 200**__**6**_

_It was a peaceful afternoon, Kate took 25 months old Aaron to the park. She decided to let him try ice cream for the first time. They were sitting down on the grass, both barefoot just enjoying the nature. She laughed at his face every time she feed him a spoon, first he closed his eyes reacting to the cold, then he opened them and sighed satisfied. He giggled at his laughing mother and begged for more._

_After they finished eating Aaron explored the area, his mother watched him from a close distance, always smiling. But Kate knew that something was wrong, she could tell she was being watched. After all, she had been on the run for three years, she had learned to stay alert all the time. There were some things one could never let go._

_Kate looked around suspiciously, she found a woman on the distance wearing sunglasses, it was almost cliché. Kate's heart beat desperately when she recognized the woman as being her mother. Diane noticed that she had been discovered and started to walk away. Kate put on her shoes quickly, she picked Aaron and her purse and ran towards Diane direction._

_Diane pretended not to see her, but Kate wouldn't give her the satisfaction of pretending not to have noticed her. She wanted to know what her mother was doing all the way out of Iowa into California. She especially wanted to know why she was watching her. Kate grabbed Diane's arm making her look at her._

"_What are you doing here, Diane?" Kate asked angry._

"_I'm sorry," Diane answered, taking off her glasses, "I just wanted to see you, to know how you were doing. I shouldn't, I'm sorry." Diane turned to leave, but Kate stopped her._

"_It's ok, I just want to know something." Kate didn't understand why she was holding her mother back, Kate didn't want to talk to her, yet she didn't let her go. "Why didn't you testify against me?"_

_Kate shifted Aaron on her arms, the boy was starting to get a little heavy. Diane's eyes fell on him and Aaron looked the older woman suspiciously. "He doesn't smile much does he?"_

"_He doesn't smile to strangers!" Kate answered with a voice full of resentment. "Just answer the question, please."_

_Diane looked up at her daughter. "I had a dream," she begun to explain defeated, "you and I were fighting, and you told me," she paused, it was hard to say it aloud, "you told me that Wayne did to you what he used to do to me." Kate swallowed blinking back tears. "Did it ever happen?" _

"_Yes," Kate's voice came out hoarse._

"_What did you mean by that?" A tear fell from Diane's eyes. "What did Wayne did to you, Katherine?"_

_Kate looked away, "he touched me, did things to me."_

"_I'm sorry," Diane cried, "I didn't know!"_

"_It doesn't matter," Kate shook her head and looked back at her mother._

"_Can I hold him?" Diane asked whipping her face. Kate thought for a while and then agreed, helping Diane with the boy. The older woman stroked the toddler's head. "He's handsome, what's his name?"_

"_Aaron," Kate answered, "the brother of Moses."_

"_I remember when you were this little," Diane told her, "you were the cutest thing, bright eyes with dark curly hair. I remember one day back when I was potty training you, it was raining and you turned to me and said, 'look mummy, the rain is going potty,' I laughed so hard!"_

_Kate laughed, "yes mom, even after so many years apart you still manages to embarrass me!"_

"_That's what mothers do, you really need to start to practice it." They smiled at each other, Diane gave Aaron back to Kate. "I love you, Katherine."_

_Kate took a long breath, "I love you too, mom."_

_Diane smiled, put her sun glasses back on. She turned round and left, Kate never heard from her mother ever again._

----------------------

James stood in front of the stereo just in his boxers, Juliet was on the shower, he had a Drive Shaft CD on his hands, and the piano tune was playing, filling up the silence.

_Funny now_

James didn't recognize the voice, but he realized Charlie wasn't the band's vocal.

_I'm falling sit standing here_

He was amazed at how much the lyrics spoke to him.

_Funny now_

_I'm crying in the rain_

He remembered the time he was tricked into killing an innocent man, he wished he could take it back, he could still feel the rain falling on skin. Falling down on him like guilt.

_All alone_

_Life never made sense_

He thought about his past, about his parents. Before he crashed on the island he was stuck with the nightmare of the night they died, but now he was free. The only thing that bothered him was having wasted so much time.

_All alone_

_Trying to be invincible_

James remembered how he stubbornly tried to tell himself that he didn't need somebody, that he didn't want someone to love. He remembered Ben quoting Mice and Men. "A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. It don't make no difference who the guy is, long as he's with you. I tell you, I tell you a guy gets too lonely and he gets sick."

_Together now_

_You're found, I'm free_

He thought about his life now, had some told him he would be married with children one day, he would have laughed at their face. But now he didn't want it any other way.

_Together now_

_We can be saved_

James looked over at Juliet who was now standing in the door way. She looked like an angle dressed in a white negligee. Her eyes beamed, the only contrast on her, blue on light whiteness. She smiled at him, he loved that smile. He turned off the stereo, picked her up on his arms and kissed her, laying her down gently on the bed, he moved on top of her and kissed her senseless.

"Wow, what was that for? You're acting like the last time you kissed me was thirty years ago." He chuckled and kissed her again.

"God, I love you!" He whispered contentedly.

"I love you to!" She said and he stared into her eyes.

"I love you because you're the key to my heart," he kisses her right hand, "because you're crazy about me," he kissed her other hand and Juliet smiled.

"What else?" She asked and he looked down at her for inspiration.

"Because you're obsessed with Stephen King's Carrie," he kissed her forehead, "and you're a cold bitch." She giggled and he kissed her nose. "Because you're THE most import woman in my life," he kissed her right cheek, "and you're in love with me," he kissed the other. "Because you're brave," he nibbled on the right ear, "and you're a badass," he nibbled the other.

He looked down at her again, her pupils were dilated, her cheeks were burning red. And her lips, they were fuller than usual, and wet from his earlier kiss. "Because you're beautiful!" He stressed the word as if he was worshiping her. He gave her a peck on the lips, and every muscle of his body complained when he pulled away. But he had one last thing to say. "And you're mine!" He captured her mouth on his savoring her, as if it was the first time he ever kissed her.

Sometime later, in the afterglow of their lovemaking, Juliet felt the need to cry. But not because she was unhappy, far from that! She wanted to cry because for the first time in her live she finally felt what it was like to be loved by a man. She was finally someone's first choice. Juliet wanted to cry because she was found!

----------------------

**Note**** #01: **So that's that! I hope you liked it, I've been meaning to write a Lost fanfiction for a long time and I've finally found inspiration to start and finish one. It's a little longer than I had envisioned, but I'm glad with the way it turned out.

**Note**** #02:** I changed the Lyrics of Saved a little bit, in order for it to fit the story. When Charlie was writing it on episode "2.12 - Fire + Water" doesn't mean song was done, he would probably change a few lines before it was released.

**Note**** #03: **Ben and Danielle! LOL One of those crazy things. In the beginning, the idea was to have Ben stalking Danielle because of Alex. Then I thought, Ben and Danielle, yeah, why not? So the two first paragraphs I wrote of Ben's book was to make people believe he is talking about Juliet, when in reality it's Danielle.

**Note**** #04:** The whole idea that the monster gave Jacob his powers I got when I watched episode "5.12 - Dead is Dead", when Ben is on Smokey's chamber, he looked at a hieroglyphics with Smokey talking to Anubis, and there were snakes around them. That's when I assossiated it with the forbidden fruit, Anubis representing Jacob, the day he got his powers.

**Note #05****:** I think this chapter got a little too happily ever after. I swear that I wanted to split Jack and Kate up and make Kate a single mom, but the Jaters would have buried me alive. Hey, just because I'm Brazilian like Paulo, don't go getting any ideas! But I guess everyone likes happy endings, right? And you know about stories, don't you? It doesn't end here, it goes on forever, we just stopped writing when everything is fine. Thanks for reading, everyone!


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